OF 


The  Ghautauqua  liteiwij  and  $cienffic  (Jfrcle, 


STUDIES    InOR   1891-92. 


Leading  Facts  of  American  History.     Montgomery,        -        -  -  $i  oo 

Social  Institutions  of  the  United  States.     Bryce,         ...  i  oo 

Initial  Studies  in  American  Letters.     Beers,         ....  I  oo 

Story  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.     Thorpe,  60 

Classic  German  Course  in  English.    Wilkinson,       -        -        -  -    i  oo 

Two  Old  Faiths.     Mitchell  and  Muir, 40 


INITIAL   STUDIES 


IN 


AMERICAN  LETTERS 


BY 

HENRY  A.   BEERS 


NEW    YORK 

CHAUTAUQUA    PRESS 

C,  L.  S.  C.  Department,  ISO  Fifth  Avenue 

1891 


The  required  books  of  the  C.  L.,$.  C.  are  recommended  by  a  Council 
of  Six.  It  must,  however,  be  understood  that  recommendation  does  not 
involve  an  approval  by  the  Council,  or  by  any  member  of  it,  of  every 
principle  or  doctrine  contained  in  the  book  recommended. 


Copyright,  1891,  by  HUNT  &  EATON,  New  York. 


f; 

B 


PREFACE. 


Tins  volume  is  intended  as  a  companion  to  the  historical 
sketch  of  English  literature,  entitled  From  Chaucer  to  Ten- 
nyson,  published  last  year  for  the  Chautauqua  Circle.  In 
writing  it  I  have  followed  the  same  plan,  aiming  to  present 
the  subject  in  a  sort  of  continuous  essay  rather  than  in  the 
form  of  a  "primer"  or  elementary  manual.  I  have  not  un 
dertaken  to  describe,  or  even  to  mention,*  every  American 
author  or  book  of  importance,  but  only  those  which  seemed 
to  me  of  most  significance.  Nevertheless  I  believe  that  the 
sketch  contains  enough  detail  to  make  it  of  some  use  as  a 
guide-book  to  our  literature.  Though  meant  to  be  mainly 
a  history  of  American  belles-lettres,  it  makes  some  mention 
of  historical  and  political  writings,  but  hardly  any  of  philo 
sophical,  scientific,  and  technical  works. 

A  chronological  rather  than  a  topical  order  has  been  fol 
lowed,  although  the  fact  that  our  best  literature  is  of  recent 
growth  has  made  it  impossible  to  adhere  as  closely  to  a 
chronological  plan  as  in  the  English  sketch.  In  the  reading 
courses  appended  to  the  different  chapters  I  have  named  a 
few  of  the  most  important  authorities  in  American  literary 
history,  such  as  Duyckinck,  Tyler,  Stedman,  and  Richardson. 
My  thanks  are  due  to  the  authors  and  publishers  who  havu 
kindly  allowed  me  the  use  of  copyrighted  matter  for  the 

M7G0056 


6  PREFACE. 

appendix  j  especially  to  Mr.  Park  Godwin  and  Messrs. 
D.  Appleton  &  Co.  for  the  passages  from  Bryant;  to 
Messrs.  A.  C.  Armstrong  <fc  Son  for  the  selections  from  Poe ; 
to  the  Rev.  E.  E.  Hale  and  Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers  for 
the  extract  from  The  Man  Without  a  Country ;  to  Walt 
Whitman  for  his  two  poems;  and  to  Mr.  Clemens  and  the 
American  Publishing  Co.  for  the  passage  from  The  Jump 
ing  Frog.  HENRY  A.  BEERS. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  PAGE 

THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD,   1607-1765 9 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD,  1765-1815 42 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  ERA  OP  NATIONAL  EXPANSION,   1815-1837 68 

CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  CONCORD  WRITEKS,   1837-1861 , 93 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS,  1837-1861 121 

CHAPTER  VI. 
LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES,  1837-1861 .....   151 


CHAPTER  VII. 
LITERATURE  SINCE  1861 182 


APPENDIX. 


213 


INITIAL   STUDIES 

IN 

AMERICAN  LETTERS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    COLONIAL    PERIOD. 
1607-1765 

THE  writings  of  our  colonial  era  have  a  much  greater  im 
portance  as  history  than  as  literature.  It  would  be  unfair 
to  judge  of  the  intellectual  vigor  of  the  English  colonists  in 
America  by  the  books  that  they  wrote;  those  "stern  men 
with  empires  in  their  brains  "  had  more  pressing  work  to  do 
than  the  making  of  books.  The  first  settlers,  indeed,  were 
brought  face  to  face  with  strange  and  exciting  conditions — • 
the  sea,  tho  wilderness,  the  Indians,  the  flora  and  fauna  of  a 
new  world — things  which  seem  stimulating  to  the  imagina 
tion,  and  incidents  and  experiences  which  might  have  lent 
themselves  easily  to  poetry  or  romance.  Of  all  these  they 
wrote  back  to  England  reports  which  were  faithful  and  some 
times  vivid,  but  which,  upon  the  whole,  hardly  rise  into  the 
region  of  literature.  "New  England,"  said  Hawthorne, 
"  was  then  in  a  state  incomparably  more  picturesque  than  at 
present."  But  to  a  contemporary  that  old  New  England  of 
the  seventeenth  century  doubtless  seemed  any  thing  but  pict 
uresque,  filled  with  grim,  hard,  work-day  realities.  The 
planters  both  of  Virginia  and  Massachusetts  were  decimated 
by  sickness  and  starvation,  constantly  threatened  by  Indian 
wars,  and  troubled  by  quarrels  among  themselves  arid  fears 


10  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  disturbance  from  England.  The  wrangles  between  the 
royal  governors  and  the  House  of  Burgesses  in  the  Old  Do 
minion,  and  the  theological  squabbles  in  New  England,  which 
fill  our  colonial  records,  are  petty  and  wearisome  to  read  of. 
At  least,  they  would  be  so  did  we  not  bear  in  mind  to  what 
imperial  destinies  these  conflicts  were  slowly  educating  the 
little  communities  which  had  hardly  yet  secured  a  foothold 
on  the  edge  of  the  raw  continent. 

Even  a  century  and  a  half  after  the  Jamestown  and  Plym 
outh  settlements,  when  the  American  plantations  had  grown 
strong  and  flourishing,  and  commerce  was  building  up  large 
towns,  and  there  were  wealth  and  generous  living  and  fine 
society,  the  "  good  old  colony  days  when  we  lived  under  the 
king,"  had  yielded  little  in  the  way  of  literature  that  is  of 
any  permanent  interest.  There  would  seem  to  be  something 
in  the  relation  of  a  colony  to  the  mother-country  which 
dooms  the  thought  and  art  of  the  former  to  a  helpless  pro 
vincialism.  Canada  and  Australia  are  great  provinces, 
wealthier  and  more  populous  than  the  thirteen  colonies  at 
the  time  of  their  separation  from  England.  They  have  cities 
whose  inhabitants  number  hundreds  of  thousands,  well- 
equipped  universities,  libraries,  cathedrals,  costly  public 
buildings,  all  the  outward  appliances  of  an  advanced  civili 
zation;  and  yet  what  have  Canada  and  Australia  contributed 
to  British  literature  ? 

American  literature  had  no-  infancy.  That  engaging  t\a- 
"tvete,  and  that  heroic  rudeness  which  give  a  charm  to  the 
early  popular  tales  and  songs  of  Europe  find,  of  course,  no 
counterpart  on  our  soil.  Instead  of  emerging  from  the  twi 
light  of  the  past  the  first  American  writings  were  produced 
under  the  garish  noon  of  a  modern  and  learned  age.  Decrep 
itude  rather  than  youthf  ulness  is  the  mark  of  a  colonial  liter 
ature.  The  poets,  in  particular,  instead  of  finding  a  challenge 
to  their  imagination  in  the  new  life  about  them,  are  apt  to 
go  on  imitating  the  cast-off  literary  fashions  of  the  mother- 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  1 1 

country.  America  was  settled  by  Englishmen  who  were 
contemporary  with  the  greatest  names  in  English  literature. 
Jamestown  was  planted  in  1607,  nine  years  before  Shakes 
peare's  death,  and  the  hero  of  that  enterprise,  Captain  John 
Smith,  may  not  improbably  have  been  a  personal  acquaint 
ance  of  the  great  dramatist.  "They  have  acted  my  fatal 
tragedies  on  the  stage,"  wrote  Smith.  Many  circumstances 
in  The  Tempest  were  doubtless  suggested  by  the  wreck  of 
the  Sea  Venture  on  "  the  still  vext  Bermoothes,"  as  described 
by  William  Strachey  in  his  True  Reportory  of  the  Wrack  and 
Redemption  of  Sir  Thomas  Gates,  written  at  Jamestown, 
and  published  at  London  in  1610.  Shakespeare's  contempo 
rary,  Michael  Drayton,  the  poet  of  the  Polyolbion,  addressed 
a  spirited  valedictory  ode  to  the  three  shiploads  of  "  brave, 
heroic  minds"  who  sailed  from  London  in  1606  to  colonize 
Virginia,  an  ode  which  ended  with  the  prophecy  of  a  future 
American  literature : 

"And  as  there  plenty  grows 

Of  laurel  every-wliere — 

Apollo's  sacred  tree— 

You  it  may  see 

A  poet's  brows 

To  crown,  that  may  sing  there." 

Another  English  poet,  Samuel  Daniel,  the  author  of  the 
Civil  Wars,  had  also  prophesied  in  a  similar  strain: 

"And  who  in  time  knows  whither  we  may  vent 

The  treasure  of  our  tongue,  to  what  strange  shores  .  .  . 

"What  worlds  in  the  yet  unformed  Occident 

May  come  refined  with  accents  that  are  ours?" 

It  needed  but  a  slight  movement  in  the  balances  of  fate, 
and  Walter  Raleigh  might  have  been  reckoned  among  the 
poets  of  America.  He  was  one  of  the  original  promoters  of 
the  Virginia  colony,  and  he  made  voyages  in  person  to  New 
foundland  and  Guiana.  And  more  unlikely  things  have 


12  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

happened  than  that  when  John  Milton  left  Cambridge  in 
1632  he  should  have  been  tempted  to  follow  Winthrop  and 
the  colonists  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  who  had  sailed  two  years 
before.  Sir  Henry  Vane,  the  younger,  who  was  afterward 
Milton's  friend — 

"Yane,  young  in  years,  but  in  sage  counsel  old" — 

came  over  in  1635,  and  was  for  a  short  time  governor  of 
Massachusetts.  These  are  idle  speculations,  and  yet,  when 
we  reflect  that  Oliver  Cromwell  was  on  the  point  of  embark 
ing  for  America  when  he  was  prevented  by  the  king's  offi 
cers,  we  may,  for  the  nonce,  "  let  our  frail  thoughts  dally 
with  false  surmise,"  and  fancy  by  how  narrow  a  chance 
Paradise  Lost  missed  being  written  in  Boston.  But,  as  a 
rule,  the  members  of  the  literary  guild  are  not  quick  to  emi 
grate.  They  like  the  feeling  of  an  old  and  rich  civilization 
about  them,  a  state  of  society  which  America  has  only  begun 
to  reach  during  the  present  century. 

Virginia  and  New  England,  says  Lowell,  were  the  "  two 
great  distributing  centers  of  the  English  race."  The  men 
who  colonized  the  country  between  the  Capes  of  Virginia 
were  not  drawn,  to  any  large  extent,  from  the  literary  or 
bookish  classes  in  the  old  country.  Many  of  the  first  set 
tlers  were  gentlemen — too  many,  Captain  Smith  thought,  for 
the  good  of  the  plantation.  Some  among  these  were  men 
of  worth  and  spirit,  "  of  good  means  and  great  parentage." 
Such  was,  for  example,  George  Percy,  a  younger  brother  of 
the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  who  was  one  of  the-  original 
adventurers,  and  the  author  of  A  Discourse  of  the  Planta 
tion  of  the  Southern  Colony  of  Virginia,  which  contains  a 
graphic  narrative  of  the  fever  and  famine  summer  of  1607 
at  Jamestown.  But  many  of  these  gentlemen  were  idlers, 
"  unruly  gallants,  packed  thither  by  their  friends  to  escape 
ill  destinies;"  dissipated  younger  sons,  soldiers  of  fortune, 
who  came  over  after  the  gold  which  was  supposed  to  abound 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  13 

in  the  new  country,  and  who  spent  their  time  in  playing 
bowls  and  drinking  at  the  tavern  as  soon  as  there  was  any 
tavern.  With  these  was  a  sprinkling  of  mechanics  and 
farmers,  indented  servants,  and  the  off-scourings  of  the  Lon 
don  streets,  fruit  of  press-gangs  and  jail  deliveries,  sent  over 
to  "  work  in  the  plantations." 

Nor  were  the  conditions  of  life  afterward  in  Virginia  very 
favorable  to  literary  growth.  The  planters  lived  isolated 
on  great  estates  which  had  water-fronts  on  the  rivers  that 
flow  into  the  Chesapeake.  There  the  tobacco,  the  chief 
staple  of  the  country,  was  loaded  directly  upon  the  trading 
vessels  that  tied  up  to  the  long,  narrow  wharves  of  the  plan 
tations.  Surrounded  by  his  slaves,  and  visited  occasionally 
by  a  distant  neighbor,  the  Virginia  country  gentleman  lived 
a  free  and  careless  life.  He  was  fond  of  fox-hunting,  horse- 
racing,  and  cock-fighting.  There  were  no  large  towns,  and 
the  planters  met  each  other  mainly  on  occasion  of  a  county 
court  or  the  assembling  of  the  Burgesses.  The  court-house 
was  the  nucleus  of  social  and  political  life  in  Virginia  as  the 
town-meeting  was  in  New  England.  In  such  a  state  of  so 
ciety  schools  were"  necessarily  few,  and  popular  education  did 
not  exist.  Sir  William  Berkeley,  who  was  the  royal  gover 
nor  of  the  colony  from  1641  to  1677,  said,  in  1670,  "  I  thank 
God  there  are  no  free  schools  nor  printing,  and  I  hope  we 
shall  not  have  these  hundred  years."  In  the  matter  of  print 
ing  this  pious  wish  was  well-nigh  realized.  The  first  press 
set  up  in  the  colony,  about  1681,  was  soon  suppressed,  and 
found  no  successor  until  the  year  1729.  From  that  date 
until  some  ten  years  before  the  Kevolution  one  printing- 
press  answered  the  needs  of  Virginia,  and  this  was  under 
official  control.  The  earliest  newspaper  in  the  colony  was 
the  Virginia  Gazette,  established  in  1736. 

In  the  absence  of  schools  the  higher  education  naturally 
languished.  Some  of  the  planters  were  taught  at  home  by 
tutors,  and  others  went  to  England  and  entered  the  univer- 


14  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

sities.  But  these  were  few  in  number,  and  there  was  no  col 
lege  in  the  colony  until  more  than  half  a  century  after  the 
foundation  of  Harvard  in  the  younger  province  of  Massa 
chusetts.  The  college  of  William  and  Mary  was  established 
at  Williamsburg  chiefly  by  the  exertions  of  the  Rev.  James 
Blair,  a  Scotch  divine,  who  was  sent  by  the  Bishop  of  Lon 
don  as  "  commissary  "  to  the  Church  in  Virginia.  The  col 
lege  received  its  charter  in  1693,  and  held  its  first  commence 
ment  in  1700.  It  is  perhaps  significant  of  the  difference 
between  the  Puritans  of  New  England  and  the  so-called 
"  Cavaliers  "  of  Virginia,  that  while  the  former  founded  and 
supported  Harvard  College  in  1636,  and  Yale  in  1701,  of 
their  own  motion  and  at  their  own  expense,  William  and 
Mary  received  its  endowment  from  the  crown,  being  pro 
vided  for  in  part  by  a  deed  of  lands  and  in  part  by  a  tax  of 
a  penny  a  pound  on  all  tobacco  exported  from  the  colony. 
In  return  for  this  royal  grant  the  college  was  to  present 
yearly  to  the  king  two  copies  of  Latin  verse.  It  is  reported 
of  the  young  Virginian  gentlemen  who  resorted  to  the  new 
college  that  they  brought  their  plantation  manners  with 
them,  and  were  accustomed  to  "  keep  race-horses  at  the  col 
lege,  and*betat  the  billiard  or  other  gaming-tables."  Will 
iam  and  Mary  College  did  a  good  work  for  the  colony,  and 
educated  some  of  the  great  Virginians  of  the  Revolutionary 
era,  but  it  has  never  been  a  large  or  flourishing  institution, 
and  has  held  no  such  relation  to  the  intellectual  development 
of  its  section  as  Harvard  and  Yale  have  held  in  the  colonies 
of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut.  Even  after  the  founda 
tion  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  in  which  Jefferson  took  a 
conspicuous  part,  Southern  youths  were  commonly  sent  to 
the  North  for  their  education,  and  at  the  time  of  the  out 
break  of  the  civil  war  there  was  a  large  contingent  of  South 
ern  students  in  several  Northern  colleges,  notably  in  Prince 
ton  and  Yale. 

Naturally,  the  first  books  written  in  America  were  descrip- 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  15 

tions  of  the  country  and  narratives  of  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
infant  settlements,  which  were  sent  home  to  be  printed  for 
the  information  of  the  English  public  and  the  encouragement 
of  further  immigration.  Among  books  of  this  kind  pro 
duced  in  Virginia  the  earliest  and  most  noteworthy  were  the 
writings  of  that  famous  soldier  of  fortune,  Captain  John 
Smith.  The  first  of  these  was  his  True  Relation,  namely, 
"  of  such  occurrences  and  accidents  of  note  as  hath  happened 
in  Virginia  since  the  first  planting  of  that  colony,"  printed 
at  London  in  1608.  Among  Smith's  other  books  the  most 
important  is  perhaps  his  General  History  of  Virginia  (Lon 
don,  1624),  a  compilation  of  various  narratives  by  different 
hands,  but  passing  under  his  name.  Smith  was  a  man  of  a 
restless  and  daring  spirit,  full  of  resource,  impatient  of  con 
tradiction,  and  of  a  somewhat  vainglorious  nature,  with  an 
appetite  for  the  marvelous  and  a  disposition  to  draw  the  long 
bow.  He  had  seen  service  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  and 
his  wonderful  adventures  lost  nothing  in  the  telling.  It  was 
alleged  against  him  that  the  evidence  of  his  prowess  rested 
almost  entirely  on  his  own  testimony.  His  truthfulness  in 
essentials  has  not,  perhaps,  been  successfully  impugned,  but 
his  narratives  have  suffered  by  the  embellishments  with 
which  he  has  colored  them;  and,  in  particular,  the  charming 
story  of  Pocahontas  saving  his  life  at  the  risk  of  her  own — 
the  one  romance  of  early  Virginian  history — has  passed  into 
the  realm  of  legend. 

Captain  Smith's  writings  have  small  literary  value  apart 
from  the  interest  of  the  events  which  they  describe  and  the 
diverting  but  forcible  personality  which  they  unconsciously 
display.  They  are  the  rough-hewn  records  of  a  busy  man 
of  action,  whose  sword  was  mightier  than  his  pen.  As  Smith 
returned  to  England  after  two  years  in  Virginia,  and  did  not 
permanently  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  settlement  of  which  he 
had  been  for  a  time  the  leading  spirit,  he  can  hardly  be 
claimed  as  an  American  author.  No  more  can  Mr.  George 


16  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Sandys,  who  came  to  Virginia  in  the  train  of  Governor 
Wyat,  in  1621,  and  completed  his  excellent  metrical  transla 
tion  of  Ovid  on  the  banks  of  the  James,  in  the  midst  of  the 
Indian  massacre  of  1622,  "limned"  as  he  writes  "by  that 
imperfect  light  which  was  snatched  from  the  hours  of  night 
and  repose,  having  wars  and  tumults  to  bring  it  tQ  light 
instead  of  the  muses."  Sandys  went  back  to  England  for 
good  probably  as  early  as  1625,  and  can,  therefore,  no  more 
be  reckoned  as  the  first  American  poet,  on  the  strength  of 
his  paraphrase  of  the  Metamorphoses,  than  he  can  be  reck 
oned  the  earliest  Yankee  inventor  because  he  "introduced 
the  first  water-mill  into  America." 

The  literature  of  colonial  Virginia,  and  of  the  southern 
colonies  which  took  their  point  of  departure  fr)m  Virginia, 
is  almost  wholly  of  this  historical  and  descriptive  kind.  A 
great  part  of  it  is  concerned  with  the  internal  affairs  of  the 
province,  such  as  "Bacon's  Rebellion,"  in  1676,  one  of  the 
most  striking  episodes  in  our  ante-revolutionary  annals,  and 
of  which  there  exist  a  number  of  narratives,  some  of  them 
anonymous,  and  only  rescued  from  a  manuscript  condition  a 
hundred  years  after  the  event.  Another  part  is  concerned 
with  the  explorations  of  new  territory.  Such  were  the 
"  Westover  Manuscripts,"  left  by  Colonel  William  Byrd,  who 
was  appointed  in  1729  one  of  the  commissioners  to  fix  the 
boundary  between  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  and  gave  an 
account  of  the  survey  in  his  History  of  the  Dividing  Line, 
which  was  printed  only  in  1841.  Colonel  Byrd  is  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  figures  of  colonial  Virginia,  and  a  type  of  the 
Old  Virginia  gentleman.  He  had  been  sent  to  England  for 
his  education,  where  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  of  the 
Middle  Temple,  elected  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  and 
formed  an  intimate  friendship  with  Charles  Boyle,  the  Earl 
of  Orrery.  He  held  many  offices  in  the  government  of  the 
colony,  and  founded  the  cities  of  Richmond  and  Petersburg. 
His  estates  were  large,  and  at  Westover — where  he  had  one  of 


THE  COLONIAL  PEEIOD.  17 

the  finest  private  libraries  in  America — he  exercised  a  baronial 
hospitality,  blending  the  usual  profusion  of  plantation  life 
with  the  elegance  of  a  traveled  scholar  and  "  picked  man  of 
countries."  Colonel  Byrd  was  rather  an  amateur  in  litera 
ture.  His  History  of  the  Dividing  Line  is  written  with  a 
jocularity  which  rises  occasionally  into  real  humor,  and  which 
gives  to  the  painful  journey  through  the  wilderness  the  air 
of  a  holiday  expedition.  Similar  in  tone  were  his  diaries  of 
A  Progress  to  the  Mines  and  A  Journey  to  the  Land  of  Eden 
in  North  Carolina. 

The  first  formal  historian  of  Virginia  was  Robert  Beverly, 
"  a  native  and  inhabitant  of  the  place,"  whose  History  of 
Virginia  was  printed  at  London  in  1705.  Beverly  was  a 
rich  planter  and  large  slave-owner,  who,  being  in  London 
in  1703,  was  shown  by  his  bookseller  the  manuscript  of  a 
forthcoming  work,  Oldmixon's  British  Empire  in  America. 
Beverly  was  set  upon  writing  his  history  by  the  inaccura 
cies  in  this,  and  likewise  because  the  province  "has  been  so 
misrepresented  to  the  common  people  of  England  as  to  make 
them  believe  that  the  servants  in  Virginia  are  made  to  draw 
in  cart  and  plow,  and  that  the  country  turns  all  people 
black  " — an  impression  which  lingers  still  in  parts  of  Europe. 
The  most  original  portions  of  the  book  are  those  in  which 
the  author  puts  down  his  personal  observations  of  the  plants 
and  animals  of  the  New  World,  and  particularly  the  account 
of  the  Indians,  to  which  his  third  book  is  devoted,  and  which 
is  accompanied  by  valuable  plates.  Beverly's  knowledge  of 
these  matters  was  evidently  at  first  hand,  and  his  descriptions 
here  are  very  fresh  and  interesting.  The  more  strictly  his 
torical  part  of  his  work  is  not  free  from  prejudice  and  inac 
curacy.  A  more  critical,  detailed,  and  impartial,  but  much 
less  readable,  work  was  William  Stith's  IFistory  of  the  First 
Discovery  and  Settlement  of  Virginia^ '47,  which  brought  the 
subject  down  only  to  the  year  1624.  Stith  was  a  clergyman, 
and  at  one  time  a  professor  in  William  and  Mary  College. 
2 


18  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

The  Virginians  were  stanch  royalists  and  churchmen. 
The  Church  of  England  was  established  by  law,  and  non 
conformity  was  persecuted  in  various  ways.  Three  mis 
sionaries  were  sent  to  the  colony  in  1642  by  the  Puritans  of 
New  England,  two  from  Braintree,  Massachusetts,  and  one 
from  New  Haven.  They  were  not  suffered  to  preach,  but 
many  resorted  to  them  in  private  houses,  until,  being  finally 
driven  out  by  fines  and  imprisonments,  they  took  refuge  in 
Catholic  Maryland.  The  Virginia  clergy  were  not,  as  a 
body,  very  much  of  a  force  in  education  or  literature.  Many 
of  them,  by  reason  of  the  scattering  and  dispersed  condition 
of  their  parishes,  lived  as  domestic  chaplains  with  the 
wealthier  planters,  and  partook  of  their  illiteracy  and  their 
passion  for  gaming  and  hunting.  Few  of  them  inher 
ited  the  zeal  of  Alexander  Whitaker,  the  "Apostle  of 
Virginia,"  who  came  over  in  1611  to  preach  to  the  col 
onists  and  convert  the  Indians,  and  who  published  in  fur 
therance  of  those  ends  Good  News  from  Virginia,  in  1613, 
three  years  before  his  death  by  drowning  in  the  James 
River. 

The  conditions  were  much  more  favorable  for  the  pro 
duction  of  a  literature  in  New  England  than  in  the  southern 
colonies.  The  free  and  genial  existence  of  the  "  Old  Domin 
ion  "  had  no  counterpart  among  the  settlers  of  Plymouth 
and  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  the  Puritans  must  have  been 
rather  unpleasant  people  to  live  with  for  persons  of  a  differ 
ent  way  of  thinking.  But  their  intensity  of  character,  their 
respect  for  learning,  and  the  heroic  mood  which  sustained 
them  through  the  hardships  and  dangers  of  their  great  en 
terprise  are  amply  reflected  in  their  own  writings.  If  these 
are  not  so  much  literature  as  the  raw  materials  of  literature, 
they  have  at  least  been  fortunate  in  finding  interpreters 
among  their  descendants,  and  no  modern  Virginian  has  done 
for  the  memory  of  the  Jamestown  planters  what  Hawthorne, 
Whittier,  Longfellow,  and  others  have  done  in  casting  the 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  19 

glamour  of  poetry  and  romance  over  the  lives  of  the  founders 
of  New  England. 

Cotton  Mather,  in  his  Magnolia,  quotes  the  following 
passage  from  one  of  those  election  sermons,  delivered  before 
the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  which  formed  for  many 
years  the  great  annual  intellectual  event  of  the  colony: 
"  The  question  was  often  put  unto  our  predecessors,  "What 
went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  to  see  f  And  the  answer  to 
it  is  not  only  too  excellent  but  too  notorious  to  be  dis 
sembled.  .  .  .  We  came  hither  because  we  would  have  our 
posterity  settled  under  the  pure  and  full  dispensations  of  the 
Gospel,  defended  by  rulers  that  should  be  of  ourselves." 
The  New  England  colonies  were,  in  fact,  theocracies. 
Their  leaders  were  clergymen,  or  laymen  whose  zeal  for  the 
faith  was  no  whit  inferior  to  that  of  the  ministers  them 
selves.  Church  and  State  were  one.  The  freeman's  oath 
was  only  administered  to  church  members,  and  there  was 
no  place  in  the  social  system  for  unbelievers  or  dissenters. 
The  pilgrim  fathers  regarded  their  transplantation  to  the 
New  World  as  an  exile,  and  nothing  is  more  touching  in  their 
written  records  than  the  repeated  expressions  of  love  and 
longing  toward  the  old  home  which  they  had  left,  and  even 
toward  that  Church  of  England  from  which  they  had  sor 
rowfully  separated  themselves.  It  was  not  in  any  light  or 
adventurous  spirit  that  they  faced  the  perils  of  the  sea  and 
the  wilderness.  "This  howling  wilderness,"  "these  ends  of 
the  earth,"  "  these  goings  down  of  the  sun,"  are  some  of  the 
epithets  which  they  constantly  applied  to  the  land  of  their 
exile.  Nevertheless  they  had  come  to  stay,  and,  unlike 
Smith  and  Percy  and  Sandys,  the  early  historians  and  writ 
ers  of  New  England  cast  in  their  lots  permanently  with  the 
new  settlements.  A  few,  indeed,  went  back  after  1640 — 
Mather  says  some  ten  or  twelve  of  the  ministers  of  the  first 
"  classis  "  or  immigration  were  among  them — when  the  vic 
tory  of  the  Puritanic  party  in  Parliament  opened  a  career 


20  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

for  them  in  England,  and  made  their  presence  there  seem 
in  some  cases  a  duty.  The  celebrated  Hugh  Peters,  for  ex 
ample,  who  was  afterward  Oliver  Cromwell's  chaplain,  and 
was  beheaded  after  the  Restoration,  went  back  in  1641,  and 
in  1647  Nathaniel  Ward,  the  minister  of  Ipswich,  Massachu 
setts,  and  author  of  a  quaint  book  against  toleration,  entitled 
The  Simple  Cobbler  of  Agawam,  written  in  America  and 
published  shortly  after  its  author's  arrival  in  England. 
The  civil  war,  too,  put  a  stop  to  further  emigration  from 
England  until  after  the  Restoration  in  1660. 

The  mass  of  the  Puritan  immigration  consisted  of  men  of 
the  middle  class,  artisans  and  husbandmen,  the  most  useful 
members  of  a  new  colony.  But  their  leaders  were  clergy 
men  educated  at  the  universities,  and  especially  at  Emmanuel 
College,  Cambridge,  the  great  Puritan  college;  their  civil 
magistrates  were  also  in  great  part  gentlemen  of  education 
and  substance,  like  the  elder  Winthrop,  who  was  learned  in 
law,  and  Theophilus  Eaton,  first  governor  of  New  Haven, 
who  was  a  London  merchant  of  good  estate.  It  is  computed 
that  there  were  in  New  England  during  the  first  generation 
as  many  university  graduates  as  in  any  community  of  equal 
population  in  the  old  country.  Almost  the  first  care  of  the 
settlers  was  to  establish  schools.  Every  town  of  fifty  fam 
ilies  was  required  by  law  to  maintain  a  common  school,  and 
every  town  of  a  hundred  families  a  grammar  or  Latin  school. 
In  1636,  only  sixteen  years  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims 
on  Plymouth  Rock,  Harvard  College  was  founded  at  New- 
town,  whose  name  was  thereupon  changed  to  Cambridge, 
the  General  Court  held  at  Boston  on  September  8,  1630, 
having  already  advanced  £400  "  by  way  of  essay  towards 
the  building  of  something  to  begin  a  college."  "  An  uni 
versity,"  says  Mather,  ' '  which  hath  been  to  these  planta 
tions,  for  the  good  literature  there  cultivated,  sal  Gentium, 
.  .  .  and  a  river  without  the  streams  whereof  these  regions 
would  have  been  mere  un watered  places  for  the  devil."  By 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  21 

1701  Harvard  had  put  forth  a  vigorous  offshoot,  Yale  Col 
lege,  at  New  Haven,  the  settlers  of  New  Haven  and  Con 
necticut  plantations  having  increased  sufficiently  to  need  a 
college  at  their  own  doors.  A  printing-press  was  set  up  at 
Cambridge  in  1639,  which  was  under  the  oversight  of  the 
university  authorities,  and  afterward  of  licensers  appointed 
by  the  civil  power.  The  press  was  no  more  free  in  Massa 
chusetts  than  in  Virginia,  and  that  "liberty  of  unlicensed 
printing  "  for  which  the  Puritan  Milton  had  pleaded  in  his 
Areopagitica,  in  1644,  was  unknown  in  Puritan  New  En 
gland  until  some  twenty  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolutionary  War.  "  The  Freeman's  Oath  "  and  an  almanac 
were  issued  from  the  Cambridge  press  in  1639,  and  in  1640 
the  first  English  book  printed  in  America,  a  collection  of 
the  psalms  in  meter,  made  by  various  ministers,  and  known 
as  the  Bay  Psalm  Book.  The  poetry  of  this  version  was 
worse,  if  possible,  than  that  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins's 
famous  rendering  ;  but  it  is  noteworthy  that  one  of  the 
principal  translators  was  that  devoted  "  Apostle  to  the  In 
dians,"  the  Rev.  John  Eliot,  who,  in  1661-63,  translated  the 
Bible  into  the  Algonquin  tongue.  Eliot  hoped  and  toiled  a 
life-time  for  the  conversion  of  those  "salvages,"  "tawnies," 
"  devil- worshipers,"  for  whom  our  early  writers  have  usu 
ally  nothing  but  bad  words.  They  have  been  destroyed 
instead  of  converted;  but  his  (so  entitled)  Mamusse  Wun- 
neetupanatamwe  Up-Biblum  God  naneesice  Nukkone  Testa 
ment  Jcah  wonk  Wusku  Testament — the  first  Bible  printed  in 
America — remains  a  monument  of  missionary  zeal  and  a 
work  of  great  value  to  students  of  the  Indian  languages. 

A  modern  writer  has  said  that,  to  one  looking  back  on  the 
history  of  old  New  England,  it  seems  as  though  the  sun 
shone  but  dimly  there,  and  the  landscape  was  always  dark 
and  wintry.  Such  is  the  impression  which  one  carries  away 
from  the  perusal  of  books  like  Bradford's  and  Winthrop's 
Journals,  or  Mather's  Wonders  of  the  Invisible  World — ;ui 


22  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

impression  of  gloom,  of  night  and  cold,  of  mysterious  fears 
besieging  the  infant  settlements  scattered  in  a  narrow  fringe 
"  between  the  groaning  forest  and  the  shore."  The  Indian 
terror  hung  over  New  England  for  more  than  half  a  century, 
or  until  the  issue  of  King  Philip's  War,  in  1676,  relieved 
the  colonists  of  any  danger  of  a  general  massacre.  Added 
to  this  were  the  perplexities  caused  by  the  earnest  resolve  of 
the  settlers  to  keep  their  New-England  Eden  free  from  the 
intrusion  of  the  serpent  in  the  shape  of  heretical  sects  in  re 
ligion.  The  Puritanism  of  Massachusetts  was  an  orthodox 
and  conservative  Puritanism.  The  later  and  more  grotesque 
out-crops  of  the  movement  in  the  old  England  found  no 
toleration  in  the  new.  But  these  refugees  for  conscience' 
sake  were  compelled  in  turn  to  persecute  Antinomians, 
Separatists,  Familists,  Libertines,  Anti-pedobaptists,  and 
later,  Quakers,  and  still  later,  Enthusiasts,  who  swarmed 
into  their  precincts  and  troubled  the  churches  with 
"  prophesyings  "  and  novel  opinions.  Some  of  these  were 
banished,  others  were  flogged  or  imprisoned,  and  a  few 
were  put  to  death.  Of  the  exiles  the  most  noteworthy  was 
Roger  Williams,  an  impetuous,  warm-hearted  man,  who  was 
so  far  in  advance  of  his  age  as  to  deny  the  power  of  the  civil 
magistrate  in  cases  of  conscience,  or  who,  in  other  words, 
maintained  the  modern  doctrine  of  the  separation  of  Church 
and  State.  Williams  was  driven  away  from  the  Massachu 
setts  colony — where  he  had  been  minister  of  the  church  at 
Salem — and  with  a  few  followers  fled  into  the  southern 
wilderness  and  settled  at  Providence.  There,  and  in  the 
neighboring  plantation  of  Rhode  Island,  for  which  he  ob 
tained  a  charter,  he  established  his  patriarchal  rule  and  gave 
freedom  of  worship  to  all  corners.  Williams  was  a  prolific 
writer  on  theological  subjects,  the  most  important  of  his 
writings  being,  perhaps,  his  Bloody  Tenent  of  Persecution, 
1644,  and  a  supplement  to  the  same  called  out  by  a  reply  to 
the  former  work  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  John  Cotton,  minister 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  23 

of  the  First  Church  at  Boston,  entitled  The  Bloody  Tenent 
Washed  and  made  White  in  the  Blood  of  the  Lamb.  Will 
iams  was  also  a  friend  to  the  Indians,  whose  lands,  he 
thought,  should  not  be  taken  from  them  without  payment, 
and  he  anticipated  Eliot  by  writing,  in  1643,  a  Key  into  the 
Language  of  America.  Although  at  odds  with  the  theology 
of  Massachusetts  Bay,  Williams  remained  in  correspondence 
with  Winthrop  and  others  in  Boston,  by  whom  he  was  highly 
esteemed.  He  visited  England  in  1643  and  1652,  and  made 
the  acquaintance  of  John  Milton. 

Besides  the  threat  of  an  Indian  war  and  their  anxious 
concern  for  the  purity  of  the  Gospel  in  their  churches,  the 
colonists  were  haunted  by  superstitious  forebodings  of  the 
darkest  kind.  It  seemed  to  them  that  Satan,  angered  by 
the  setting  up  of  the  kingdom  of  the  saints  in  America,  had 
"  come  down  in  great  wrath,"  and  was  present  among  them, 
sometimes  even  in  visible  shape,  to  terrify  and  tempt.  Spe 
cial  providences  and  unusual  phenomena,  like  earthquakes, 
mirages,  and  the  northern  lights,  are  gravely  recorded  by 
Winthrop  and  Mather  and  others  as  portents  of  supernatural 
persecutions.  Thus  Mrs.  Anne  Hutchinson,  the  celebrated 
leader  of  the  Familists,  having,  according  to  rumor,  been  de 
livered  of  a  monstrous  birth,. the  Rev.  John  Cotton,  in  open 
assembly,  at  Boston,  upon  a  lecture  day,  "  thereupon  gath 
ered  that  it  might  signify  her  error  in  denying  inherent 
righteousness."  "There  will  be  an  unusual  range  of  the 
devil  among  us,"  wrote  Mather,  "  a  little  before  the  second 
coming  of  our  Lord.  The  evening  wolves  will  be  much 
abroad  when  we  are  near  the  evening  of  the  world."  This 
belief  culminated  in  the  horrible  witchcraft  delusion  at  Salem 
in  1692,  that  "spectral  puppet  play,"  which,  beginning  with 
the  malicious  pranks  of  a  few  children  who  accused  certain 
uncanny  old  women  and  other  persons  of  mean  condition 
and  suspected  lives  of  having  tormented  them  with  magic, 
gradually  drew  into  its  vortex  victims  of  the  highest  char- 


24  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

acter,  and  resulted  in  the  judicial  murder  of  over  nineteen 
people.  Many  of  the  possessed  pretended  to  have  been 
visited  by  the  apparition  of  a  little  black  man,  who  urged 
them  to  inscribe  their  names  in  a  red  book  which  he  carried 
• — a  sort  of  muster-roll  of  those  who  had  forsworn  God's 
service  for  the  devil's.  Others  testified  to  having  been  pres 
ent  at  meetings  of  witches  in  the  forest.  It  is  difficult  now 
to  read  without  contempt  the  "  evidence  "  which  grave  jus 
tices  and  learned  divines  considered  sufficient  to  condemn  to 
death  men  and  women  of  unblemished  lives.  It  is  true  that 
the  belief  in  witchcraft  was  general  at  that  time  all  over  the 
civilized  world,  and  that  sporadic  cases  of  witch-burnings  had 
occurred  in  different  parts  of  America  and  Europe.  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  in  his  Religio  Medici,  1635,  affirmed  his 
belief  in  witches,  and  pronounced  those  who  doubted  of 
them  "  a  sort  of  atheist."  But  the  superstition  came  to  a 
head  in  the  Salem  trials  and  executions,  and  was  the  more 
shocking  from  the  general  high  level  of  intelligence  in  the 
community  in  which  these  were  held.  It  would  be  well  if 
those  who  lament  the  decay  of  "faith"  would  remember 
what  things  were  done  in  New  England  in  the  name  of  faith 
less  than  two  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  not  wonderful  that, 
to  the  Massachusetts  Puritans  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  mysterious  forest  held  no  beautiful  suggestion;  to  them 
it  was  simply  a  grim  and  hideous  wilderness,  whose  dark 
aisles  were  the  ambush  of  prowling  savages  and  the  ren 
dezvous  of  those  other  "  devil- worshipers  "  who  celebrated 
there  a  kind  of  vulgar  Walpurgis  night. 

The  most  important  of  original  sources  for  the  history  of 
the  settlement  of  New  England  are  the  journals  of  William 
Bradford,  first  governor  of  Plymouth,  and  John  Winthrop, 
the  second  governor  of  Massachusetts,  which  hold  a  place 
corresponding  to  the  writings  of  Captain  John  Smith  in  the 
Virginia  colony,  but  are  much  more  sober  and  trustworthy. 
Bradford's  History  of  Plymouth  Plantation  covers  the  period 


THE  COLONIAL  PEKIOD.  25 

from  1620  to  1646.  The  manuscript  was  used  by  later  an 
nalists,  but  remained  unpublished,  as  a  whole,  until  1855, 
having  been  lost  during  the  War  of  the  Revolution  and  recov 
ered  long  afterward  in  England.  Winthrop's  Journal,  or 
History  of  New  England,  begun  on  shipboard  in  1630,  and 
extending  to  1649,  was  not  published  entire  until  1826.  It 
is  of  equal  authority  with  Bradford's,  and  perhaps,  on  the 
whole,  the  more  important  of  the  two,  as  the  colony  of  Mas 
sachusetts  Bay,  whose  history  it  narrates,  greatly  outwent 
Plymouth  in  wealth  and  population,  though  not  in  priority 
of  settlement.  The  interest  of  Winthrop's  Journal  lies  in 
the  events  that  it  records  rather  than  in  any  charm  in  the 
historian's  manner  of  recording  them.  His  style  is  prag 
matic,  and  some  of  the  incidents  which  he  gravely  notes  are 
trivial  to  the  modern  mind,  though  instructive  as  to  our  fore 
fathers'  way  of  thinking.  For  instance,  of  the  year  1632: 
"  At  Watertown  there  was  (in  the  view  of  divers  witnesses) 
a  great  combat  between  a  mouse  and  a  snake,  and  after  a 
long  fight  the  mouse  prevailed  and  killed  the  snake.  The 
pastor  of  Boston,  Mr.  Wilson,  a  very  sincere,  holy  man,  hear 
ing  of  it,  gave  this  interpretation:  that  the  snake  was  the 
devil,  the  mouse  was  a  poor,  contemptible  people,  which  God 
had  brought  hither,  which  should  overcome  Satan  here  and 
dispossess  him  of  his  kingdom."  The  reader  of  Winthrop's 
Journal  comes  every-where  upon  hints  which  the  imag 
ination  has  since  shaped  into  poetry  and  romance.  The 
germs  of  many  of  Longfellow's  N~ew  England  Tragedies,  of 
Hawthorne's  Maypole  of  Merrymount,  and  Endicottfs  Red 
Cross,  and  of  Whittier's  John  Under  hill  and  The  Familists* 
.  Hymn  are  all  to  be  found  in  some  dry,  brief  entry  of  the  old 
Puritan  diarist.  "  Robert  Cole,  having  been  oft  punished 
for  drunkenness,  was  now  ordered  to  wear  a  red  D  about  his 
neck  for  a  year,"  to  wit,  the  year  1633,  and  thereby  gave  occa 
sion  to  the  greatest  American  romance,  The  Scarlet  Letter. 
The  famous  apparition  of  the  phantom  ship  in  New  Haven 


26  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

harbor,  "  upon  the  top  of  the  poop  a  man  standing  with  one 
hand  akimbo  under  his  left  side,  and  in  his  right  hand  a 
sword  stretched  out  toward  the  sea,"  was  first  chronicled  by 
Winthrop  under  the  year  1648.  This  meteorological  phenom 
enon  took  on  the  dimensions  of  a  full-grown  myth  some  forty 
years  later,  as  related,  with  many  embellishments,  by  Rev. 
James  Pierpont,  of  New  Haven,  in  a  letter  to  Cotton  Mather. 
Winthrop  put  great  faith  in  special  providences,  and  among 
other  instances  narrates,  not  without  a  certain  grim  satisfac 
tion,  how  "  the  Mary  Rose,  a  ship  of  Bristol,  of  about  200 
tons,"  lying  before  Charleston,  was  blown  in  pieces  with  her 
own  powder,  being  twenty-one  barrels,  wherein  the  judgment 
of  God  appeared,  "  for  the  master  and  company  were  many  of 
them  profane  scoffers  at  us  and  at  the  ordinances  of  religion 
here."  Without  any  effort  at  dramatic  portraiture  or  char 
acter-sketching,  Winthrop  managed  in  all  simplicity,  and  by 
the  plain  relation  of  facts,  to  leave  a  clear  impression  of 
many  prominent  figures  in  the  first  Massachusetts  immigra 
tion.  In  particular  there  gradually  arises  from  the  entries 
in  his  diary  a  very  distinct  and  diverting  outline  of  Captain 
John  Underbill,  celebrated  in  Whittier's  poem.  He  was  one 
of  the  few  professional  soldiers  who  came  over  with  the 
Puritan  fathers,  such  as  John  Mason,  the  hero  of  the  Pequot 
War,  and  Miles  Standish,  whose  Courtship  Longfellow  sang. 
He  had  seen  service  in  the  Low  Countries,  and  in  pleading 
the  privilege  of  his  profession  "  he  insisted  much  upon  the 
liberty  which  all  States  do  allow  to  military  officers  for  free 
speech,  etc.,  and  that  himself  had  spoken  sometimes  as  freely 
to  Count  Nassau."  Captain  Underbill  gave  the  colony 
no  end  of  trouble,  both  by  his  scandalous  living  and  his  here 
sies  in  religion.  Having  been  seduced  into  Familistical  opin 
ions  by  Mrs.  Anne  Ilutchinson,  who  was  banished  for  her 
beliefs,  he  was  had  up  before  the  General  Court  and  ques 
tioned,  among  other  points,  as  to  his  own  report  of  the  man 
ner  of  his  conversion.  "  He  had  lain  under  a  spirit  of  bondage 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  27 

and  a  legal  way  for  years,  and  could  get  no  assurance,  till, 
at  length,  as  he  was  taking  a  pipe  of  tobacco,  the  Spirit 
set  home  an  absolute  promise  of  free  grace  with  such  assur 
ance  and  joy  as  he  never  since  doubted  of  his  good  estate, 
neither  should  he,  though  he  should  fall  into  sin.  .  .  .  The 
Lord's  day  following  he  made  a  speech  in  the  assembly, 
showing  that  as  the  Lord  was  pleased  to  convert  Paul  as  he 
was  in  persecuting,  etc.,  so  he  might  manifest  himself  to  him 
as  he  was  taking  the  moderate  use  of  the  creature  called 
tobacco."  The  gallant  captain,  being  banished  the  colony, 
betook  himself  to  the  falls  of  the  Piscataquack  (Exeter,  N.H.), 
where  the  Rev.  John  Wheelwright,  another  adherent  of 
Mrs.  Hutchinson,  had  gathered  a  congregation.  Being  made 
governor  of  this  plantation,  Underbill  sent  letters  to  the 
Massachusetts  magistrates,  breathing  reproaches  and  impre 
cations  of  vengeance.  But  meanwhile  it  was  discovered  that 
he  had  been  living  in  adultery  at  Boston  with  a  young 
woman  whom  he  had  seduced,  the  wife  of  a  cooper,  and  the 
captain  was  forced  to  make  public  confession,  which  he  did 
with  great  unction  and  in  a  manner  highly  dramatic.  "  He 
came  in  his  worst  clothes  (being  accustomed  to  take  great 
pride  in  his  bravery  and  neatness),  without  a  band,  in  a  foul 
linen  cap,  and  pulled  close  to  his  eyes,  and  standing  upon  a 
form,  he  did,  with  many  deep  sighs  and  abundance  of  tears, 
lay  open  his  wicked  course."  There  is  a  lurking  humor  in 
the  grave  Winthrop's  detailed  account  of  Underbill's  doings. 
Winthrop's  own  personality  comes  out  well  in  his  Journal. 
He  was  a  born  leader  of  men,  a  conditor  imperil,  just,  mod 
erate,  patient,  wise;  and  his  narrative  gives,  upon  the  whole, 
a  favorable  impression  of  the  general  prudence  and  fair- 
mindedness  of  the  Massachusetts  settlers  in  their  dealings 
with  one  another,  with  the  Indians,  and  with  the  neighboring 
plantations. 

Considering  our  forefathers'  errand  and  calling  into  this 
wilderness,  it  is  not  strange  that  their  chief  literary  staples 


28  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

were  sermons  and  tracts  in  controversial  theology.  Multi 
tudes  of  these  were  written  and  published  by  the  divines  of 
the  first  generation,  such  as  John  Cotton,  Thomas  Shepard, 
John  Norton,  Peter  Bulkley,  and  Thomas  Hooker,  the 
founder  of  Hartford,  of  whom  it  was  finely  said  that  "  when 
he  was  doing  his  Master's  business  he  would  put  a  king  into 
his  pocket."  Nor  were  their  successors  in  the  second  or  the 
third  generation  any  less  industrious  and  prolific.  They  rest 
from  their  labors  and  their  works  do  follow  them.  Their 
sermons  and  theological  treatises  are  not  literature:  they  are 
for  the  most  part  dry,  heavy,  and  dogmatic,  but  they  exhibit 
great  learning,  logical  acuteness,  and  an  earnestness  which 
sometimes  rises  into  eloquence.  The  pulpit  ruled  New  En 
gland,  and  the  sermon  was  the  great  intellectual  engine  of 
the  time.  The  serious  thinking  of  the  Puritans  was  given 
almost  exclusively  to  religion;  the  other  world  was  all  their 
art.  The  daily  secular  events  of  life,  the  aspects  of  nature, 
the  vicissitude  of  the  seasons,  were  important  enough  to  find 
record  in  print  only  in  so  far  as  they  manifested  God's  deal 
ings  with  his  people.  So  much  was  the  sermon  depended 
upon  to  furnish  literary  food  that  it  was  the  general  custom 
of  serious-minded  laymen  to  take  down  the  words  of  the  dis 
course  in  their  note-books.  Franklin,  in  his  Autobiography, 
describes  this  as  the  constant  habit  of  his  grandfather,  Peter 
Folger;  and  Mather,  in  his  life  of  the  elder  Winthrop,  says 
that  "  tho'  he  wrote  not  after  the  preacher,  yet  such  was  his 
attention  and  such  his  retention  in  hearing,  that  he  repeated 
unto  his  family  the  sermons  which  he  had  heard  in  the  con 
gregation."  These  discourses  were  commonly  of  great 
length;  twice,  or  sometimes  thrice,  the  pulpit  hour-glass  was 
silently  inverted  while  the  orator  pursued  his  theme  even 
unto  "  fourteen thly." 

The  book  which  best  sums  up  the  life  and  thought  of  this 
old  New  England  of  the  seventeenth  century  is  Cotton 
Mather's  Magnolia  Christi  Americana.  Mather  was  by 


THE  COLOXIAL  PERIOD.  29 

birth  a  member  of  that  clerical  aristocracy  which  developed 
later  into  Dr.  Holmes's  "  Brahmin  Caste  of  New  England." 
His  maternal  grandfather  was  John  Cotton.  His  father  was 
Increase  Mather,  the  most  learned  divine  of  his  generation 
in  New  England,  minister  of  the  North  Church  of  Boston, 
President  of  Harvard  College,  and  author,  inter  alia,  of  that 
characteristically  Puritan  book,  An  Essay  for  the  Recording 
of  Illustrious  Providences.  Cotton  Mather  himself  was  a 
monster  of  erudition  and  a  prodigy  of  diligence.  He  was 
graduated  from  Harvard  at  fifteen.  He  ordered  his  daily 
life  and  conversation  by  a  system  of  minute  observances. 
He  was  a  book-worm,  whose  life  was  spent  between  his 
library  and  his  pulpit,  and  his  published  works  number 
upward  of  three  hundred  and  eighty.  Of  these  the  most 
important  is  the  Magnolia,  1702,  an  ecclesiastical  history  of 
New  England  from  1620  to  1698,  divided  into  seven  parts: 
I.  Antiquities;  II.  Lives  of  the  Governors;  III.  Lives  of 
Sixty  Famous  Divines;  IV.  A  History  of  Harvard  College, 
with  biographies  of  its  eminent  graduates  ;  V.  Acts  and 
Monuments  of  the  Faith  ;  VI.  Wonderful  Providences ; 
VII.  The  Wars  of  the  Lord — that  is,  an  account  of  the  Afflic 
tions  and  Disturbances  of  the  Churches  and  the  Conflicts 
with  the  Indians.  The  plan  of  the  work  thus  united  that 
of  Fuller's  Worthies  of  England  and  Church  History  with 
that  of  Wood's  Athenai  Oxonienses  and  Fox's  Book  of 
Martyrs. 

Mather's  prose  was  of  the  kind  which  the  English  Com 
monwealth  writers  used.  He  was  younger  by  a  generation 
than  Dryden  ;  but,  as  literary  fashions  are  slower  to  change 
in  a  colony  than  in  the  mother-country,  that  nimble  English 
which  Dryden  and  the  Restoration  essayists  introduced  had 
not  yet  displaced  in  New  England  the  older  manner.  Mather 
wrote  in  the  full  and  pregnant  style  of  Taylor,  Milton, 
Brown,  Fuller,  and  Burton,  a  style  ponderous  with  learning 
and  stiff  with  allusions,  digressions,  conceits,  anecdotes,  and 


30  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

quotations  from  the  Greek  and  the  Latin.  A  page  of  the 
Magnalia  is  almost  as  richly  mottled  with  italics  as  one  from 
the  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  and  the  quaintness  which 
Mather  caught  from  his  favorite  Fuller  disports  itself  in 
textual  pun  and  marginal  anagram  and  the  fantastic  sub 
titles  of  his  books  and  chapters.  He  speaks  of  Thomas 
Hooker  as  having  "  angled  many  scores  of  souls  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  anagrammatizes  Mrs.  Hutch in- 
son's  surname  into  "the  non-such;"  and  having  occasion 
to  speak  of  Mr.  Urian  Oakes's  election  to  the  presidency 
of  Harvard  College,  enlarges  upon  the  circumstance  as 
follows: 

"  We  all  know  that  Britain  knew  nothing  more  famous 
than  their  ancient  sect  of  DRUIDS  ;  the  philosophers, 
whose  order,  they  say,  was  instituted  by  one  Samothes, 
which  is  in  English  as  much  as  to  say,  an  heavenly  man. 
The  Celtic  name,  Deru,  for  an  Oak  was  that  from  whence 
they  received  their  denomination;  as  at  this  very  day  the 
Welch  call  this  tree  Drew,  and  this  order  of  men  Derwyd- 
don.  But  there  are  no  small  antiquaries  who  derive  this  oaken 
religion  and  philosophy  from  the  Oaks  of  Mamre,  where  the 
Patriarch  Abraham  had  as  well  a  dwelling  as  an  altar.  That 
Oaken-Plain  and  the  eminent  OAK  under  which  Abraham 
lodged  was  extant  in  the  days  of  Constantine,  as  Isidore, 
Jerom,  and  Sozomen  have  assured  us.  Yea,  there  are  shrewd 
probabilities  that  Noah  himself  had  lived  in  this  very  Oak- 
plain  before  him;  for  this  very  place  was  called  Oyy?/,  which 
was  the  name  of  Noah,  so  styled  from  the  Oggyan  (subcin- 
eritiis  panibus]  sacrifices,  which  he  did  use  to  offer  in  this 
renowned  Grove.  And  it  was  from  this  example  that  the 
ancients,  and  particularly  that  the  Druids  of  the  nations, 
chose  oaken  retirements  for  their  studies.  Reader,  let  us 
now,  upon  another  account,  behold  the  students  of  Harvard 
College,  as  a  rendezvous  of  happy  Druids,  under  the  influ 
ences  of  so  rare  a  president.  But,  alas  !  our  joy  must  be 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  31 

short-lived,  for  on  July  25,  1681,  the  stroke  of  a  sudden 
death  felled  the  tree, 

"  Qui  tantum  inter  caput  extulit  omnes 
Quantum  lenta  solent  inter  viberna  cypressi. 

Mr.  (.hikes  thus  being  transplanted  into  the  better  world  the 
presidentship  was  immediately  tendered  unto  Mr.  Increase 
Mather." 

This  will  suffice  as  an  example  of  the  bad  taste  and  labo 
rious  pedantry  which  disfigured  Mather's  writing.  In  its 
substance  the  book  is  a  perfect  thesaurus;  and  inasmuch  as 
nothing  is  unimportant  in  the  history  of  the  beginnings  of 
such  a  nation  as  this  is  and  is  destined  to  be,  the  Magnolia 
will  always  remain  a  valuable  and  interesting  work.  Cotton 
Mather,  born  in  1663,  was  of  the  second  generation  of  Amer 
icans,  his  grandfather  being  of  the  immigration,  but  his  fa 
ther  a  native  of  Dorchester,  Mass.  A  comparison  of  his 
writings  and  of  the  writings  of  his  contemporaries  with  the 
works  of  Bradford,  Winthrop,  Hooker,  and  others  of  the 
original  colonists,  shows  that  the  simple  and  heroic  faith  of 
the  Pilgrims  had  hardened  into  formalism  and  doctrinal 
rigidity.  The  leaders  of  the  Puritan  exodus,  notwithstand 
ing  their  intolerance  of  errors  in  belief,  were  comparatively 
broad-minded  men.  They  were  sharers  in  a  great  national 
movement, 'and  they  came  over  when  their  cause  was  warm 
with  the  glow  of  martyrdom  and  on  the  eve  of  its  coming 
triumph  at  home.  'After  the  Restoration,  in  1660,  the  cur 
rents  of  national  feeling  no  longer  circulated  so  freely 
through  this  distant  member  of  the  body  politic,  and  thought 
in  America  became  more  provincial.  The  English  dissent 
ers,  though  socially  at  a  disadvantage  as  compared  with  the 
Church  of  England,  had  the  great  benefit  of  living  at  the 
center  of  national  life,  and  of  feeling  about  them  the  press 
ure  of  vast  bodies  of  people  who  did  not  think  as  they  did, 
In  New  England,  for  many  generations,  the  dominant  sect 


32  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

had  things  all  its  own  way — a  condition  of  things  which  is 
not  healthy  for  any  sect  or  party.  Hence  Mather  and  the 
divines  of  his  time  appear  in  their  writings  very  much  like 
so  many  Puritan  bishops,  jealous  of  their  prerogatives,  mag 
nifying  their  apostolate,  and  careful  to  maintain  their  au 
thority  over  the  laity.  Mather  had  an  appetite  for  the 
marvelous,  and  took  a  leading  part  in  the  witchcraft 
trials,  of  which  he  gave  an  account  in  his  Wonders  of  the 
Invisible  World,  1693.  To  the  quaint  pages  of  the  Mag- 
nalia  our  modern  authors  have  resorted  as  to  a  collection 
of  romances  or  fairy  tales.  Whittier,  for  example,  took 
from  thence  the  subject  of  his  poem  The  Garrison  of  Cape 
Anne;  and  Hawthorne  embodied  in  Grandfather's  Chair 
the  most  elaborate  of  Mather's  biographies.  This  was  the 
life  of  Sir  William  Phipps,  who,  from  being  a  poor  shep 
herd  boy  in  his  native  province  of  Maine,  rose  to  be  the 
royal  governor  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  story  of  whose 
wonderful  adventures  in  raising  the  freight  of  a  Spanish 
ship,  sunk  on  a  reef  near  Port  de  la  Plata,  reads  less  like 
sober  fact  than  like  some  ancient  fable,  with  talk  of  the 
Spanish  main,  bullion,  and  plate  and  jewels  and  "pieces 
of  eight." 

Of  Mather's  generation  was  Samuel  Sewall,  Chief-Justice 
of  Massachusetts,  a  singularly  gracious  and  venerable  figure, 
who  is  intimately  known  through  his  Diary,  kept  from  1673 
to  1729.  This  has  been  compared  with  the  more  famous 
diary  of  Samuel  Pepys,  which  it  resembles  in  its  confidential 
character  and  the  completeness  of  its  self -revelation,  but  to 
which  it  is  as  much  inferior  in  historic  interest  as  "  the  petty 
province  here  "  was  inferior  in  political  and  social  importance 
to  "  Britain  far  away."  For  the  most  part  it  is  a  chronicle  of 
small  beer,  the  diarist  jotting  down  the  minutiae  of  his  do 
mestic  life  and  private  aifairs,  even  to  the  recording  of  such 
haps  as  this:  "March  23,  I  had  my  hair  cut  by  G.  Barret." 
But  it  also  affords  instructive  glimpses  of  public  events, 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  33 

such  as  King  Philip's  War,  the  Quaker  troubles,  the  English 
Revolution  of  1688,  etc.  It  bears  about  the  same  relation  to 
New  England  history  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century 
as  Bradford's  and  Winthrop's  Journals  bear  to  that  of  the 
first  generation.  Sewall  was  one  of  the  justices  who  pre 
sided  at  the  trial  of  the  Salem  witches;  but  for  the  part 
which  he  took  in  that  wretched  affair  he  made  such  atone 
ment  as  was  possible,  by  open  confession  of  his  mistake  and 
his  remorse  in  the  presence  of  the  Church.  Sewall  was  one 
of  the  first  writers  against  African  slavery,  in  his  brief  tract, 
The  Selling  of  Joseph y  printed  at  Boston  in  1700.  His  Phe 
nomena  Qucedam  Apocatyptica,  a  mystical  interpretation  of 
prophecies  concerning  the  New  Jerusalem,  which  he  identi 
fies  with  America,  is  remembered  only  because  Whittier,  in 
his  Prophecy  of  Samuel  Sewall,  has  paraphrased  one  poetic 
passage  which  shows  a  loving  observation  of  nature  very  rare 
in  our  colonial  writers. 

Of  poetry,  indeed,  or,  in  fact,  of  pure  literature,  in  the  nar 
rower  sense — that  is,  of  the  imaginative  representation  of 
life — there  was  little  or  none  in  the  colonial  period.  There 
were  no  novels,  no  plays,  no  satires,  and — until  the  example 
of  the  Spectator  had  begun  to  work  on  this  side  the  water — 
no  experiments  even  at  the  lighter  forms  of  essay-writing, 
character-sketches,  and  literary  criticism.  There  was  verse 
of  a  certain  kind,  but  the  most  generous  stretch  of  the  term 
would  hardly  allow  it  to  be  called  poetry.  Many  of  the  early 
divines  of  New  England  relieved  their  pens,  in  the  intervals 
of  sermon-writing,  of  epigrams,  elegies,  eulogistic  verses,  and 
similar  grave  trifles  distinguished  by  the  crabbed  wit  of  the 
so-called  "  metaphysical  poets,"  whose  manner  was  in  fashion 
when  the  Puritans  left  England;  the  manner  of  Donne  and 
Cowley,  and  those  darlings  of  the  New-English  muse,  the 
Emblems  of  Quarles  and  the  Divine  Week  of  Du  Bartas,  as 
translated  by  Sylvester.  The  Magnolia  contains  a  number 
of  these  things  in  Latin  and  English,  and  is  itself  well  bol- 
3 


34  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

stered  with  complimentary  introductions  in  meter  by   the 
author's  friends.     For  example : 

COTTONIUS  MATHERUS. 

ANAGRAM. 

Titos  Tecnm  Ornasti. 

"  While  thus  the  dead  in  thy  rare  pages  rise 
Thine,  with  thyself  thou  dost  immortalize. 
To  view  the  odds  thy  learned  lives  invite 
'Twixt  Eleutherian  aud  Edomite. 
But  all  succeeding  ages  shall  despair 
A  fitting  monument  for  thee  to  rear. 
Thy  own  rich  pen  (peace,  silly  Momus,  peace!) 
Hath  given  them  a  lasting  writ  of  ease." 

The  epitaphs  and  mortuary  verses  were  especially  ingenious 
in  the  matter  of  puns,  anagrams,  and  similar  conceits.  The 
death  of  the  Rev.  Samuel  Stone,  of  Hartford,  afforded  an 
opportunity  of  this  sort  not  to  be  missed,  and  his  threnodist 
accordingly  celebrated  him  as  a  "  whetstone,"  a  "  loadstone," 
an  "Ebenezer" — 

"  A  stone  for  kingly  David's  use  so  fit 

As  would  not  fail  Goliath's  front  to  hit,"  etc. 

The  most  characteristic,  popular,  and  widely  circulated 
poem  of  colonial  New  England  was  Michael  Wigglesworth's 
Day  of  Doom  (1662),  a  kind  of  doggerel  Inferno,  which 
went  through  nine  editions,  and  "was  the  solace,"  says 
Lowell,  "  of  every  fireside,  the  flicker  of  the  pine-knots  by 
which  it  was  conned  perhaps  adding  a  livelier  relish  to  its 
premonitions  of  eternal  combustion."  Wigglesworth  had 
not  the  technical  equipment  of  a  poet.  His  verse  is  sing 
song,  his  language  rude  and  monotonous,  and  the  lurid  hor 
rors  of  his  material  hell  are  more  likely  to  move  mirth  than 
fear  in  a  modern  reader.  But  there  are  an  unmistakable 
vigor  of  imagination  and  a  sincerity  of  belief  in  his  gloomy 
poem  which  hold  it  far  above  contempt,  and  easily  account 
for  its  universal  currency  among  a  people  like  the  Puritans. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  55 

One  stanza  has  been  often  quoted  for  its  grim  concession 
to  unregenerate  infants  of  "the  easiest  room  in  hell" — 
a  limbus  infantum  which  even  Origen  need  not  have 
scrupled  at. 

The  most  authoritative  expounder  of  New  England  Cal 
vinism  was  Jonathan  Edwards  (1703-58),  a  native  of  Con 
necticut  and  a  graduate  of  Yale,  who  was  minister  for  more 
than  twenty  years  over  the  church  in  Northampton,  Mass., 
afterward  missionary  to  the  Stockbridge  Indians,  and  at  the 
time  of  his  deatli  had  just  been  inaugurated  president  of 
Princeton  College.  By  virtue  of  his  Inquiry  into  the  Free 
dom  of  the  Will,  1754,  Edwards  holds  rank  as  the  subtlest 
metaphysician  of  his  age.  This  treatise  was  composed  to 
justify,  on  philosophical  grounds,  the  Calvinistic  doctrines 
of  fore- ordination  and  election  by  grace,  though  its  arguments 
are  curiously  coincident  with  those  of  the  scientific  necessita 
rians,  whose  conclusions  are  as  far  asunder  from  Edwards's 
"  as  from  the  center  thrice  to  the  utmost  pole."  His  writings 
belong  to  theology  rather  than  to  literature,  but  there  is  an 
intensity  and  a  spiritual  elevation  about  them,  apart  from  the 
profundity  and  acuteness  of  the  thought,  which  lift  them 
here  and  there  into  the  finer  ether  of  purely  emotional  or 
imaginative  art.  He  dwelt  rather  upon  the  terrors  than  the 
comfort  of  the  word,  and  his  chosen  themes  were  the  dog 
mas  of  predestination,  original  sin,  total  depravity,  and 
eternal  punishment.  The  titles  of  his  sermons  are  signifi 
cant:  Men  Naturally  God's  Enemies,  Wrath  upon  the  Wicked 
to  the  Uttermost,  The  Final  Judgment,  etc.  "A  natural 
man,"  he  wrote  in  the  first  of  these  discourses,  "  has  a  heart 
like  the  heart  of  a  devil.  .  .  .  The  heart  of  a  natural  man 
is  as  destitute  of  love  to  God  as  a  dead,  stiff,  cold  corpse  is  of 
vital  heat."  Perhaps  the  most  famous  of  Edwards's  sermons 
was  Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry  God,  preached  at 
Enfield,  Conn.,  July  8,  1741,  "  at  a  time  of  great  awakenings," 
and  upon  the  ominous  text,  Their  foot  shall  slide  in  due  time. 


36  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

"  The  God  that  holds  you  over  the  pit  of  hell,"  runs  an  oft- 
quoted  passage  from  this  powerful  denunciation  of  the  wrath 
to  come,  "much  as  one  holds  a  spider  or  some  loathsome 
insect  over  the  fire,  abhors  you,  and  is  dreadfully  provoked. 
.  .  .  You  are  ten  thousand  times  more  abominable  in  his 
eyes  than  the  most  hateful  venomous  serpent  is  in  ours.  .  .  . 
You  hang  by  a  slender  thread,  with  the  flames  of  divine  wrath 
flashing  about  it.  ...  If  you  cry  to  God  to  pity  you  he  will 
be  so  far  from  pitying  you  in  your  doleful  case  that  he  will 
only  tread  you  under  foot.  .  .  .  He  will  crush  out  your  blood 
and  make  it  fly,  and  it  shall  be  sprinkled  on  his  garments  so 
as  to  stain  all  his  raiment."  But  Edwards  was  a  rapt  soul, 
possessed  with  the  love  as  well  as  the  fear  of  the  God,  and 
there  are  passages  of  sweet  and  exalted  feeling  in  his  Trea 
tise  Concerning  Religious  Affections,  1746.  Such  is  his  por 
trait  of  Sarah  Pierpont,  "  a  young  lady  in  New  Haven,"  who 
afterward  became  his  wife  and  who  "will  sometimes  go 
about  from  place  to  place  singing  sweetly,  and  no  one  knows 
for  what.  She  loves  to  be  alone,  walking  in  the  fields  and 
groves,  and  seems  to  have  some  one  invisible  always  convers 
ing  with  her."  Edwards's  printed  works  number  thirty-six 
titles.  A  complete  edition  of  them  in  ten  volumes  was  pub 
lished  in  1829  by  his  great  grandson,  Sereno  D wight.  The 
memoranda  from  Edwards's  note-books,  quoted  by  his  editor 
and  biographer,  exhibit  a  remarkable  precocity.  Even  as  a 
school-boy  and  a  college  student  he  had  made  deep  guesses 
in  physics  as  well  as  metaphysics,  and,  as  might  have  been 
predicted  of  a  youth  of  his  philosophical  insight  and  ideal 
cast  of  mind,  he  had  early  anticipated  Berkeley  in  denying 
the  existence  of  matter.  In  passing  from  Mather  to  Edwards 
we  step  from  the  seventeenth  to  the  eighteenth  century. 
There  is  the  same  difference  between  them  in  style  and  turn 
of  thought  as  between  Milton  and  Locke,  or  between  Fuller 
and  Dryden.  The  learned  digressions,  the  witty  conceits, 
the  perpetual  interlarding  of  the  text  with  scraps  of  Latin, 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  37 

have  fallen  off,  even  as  the  full-bottomed  wig  and  the  cler 
ical  gown  and  bands  have  been  laid  aside  for  the  undistin- 
guishing  dress  of  the  modern  minister.  In  Edwards's  English 
all  is  simple,  precise,  direct,  and  business-like. 

Benjamin  Franklin  (1706-90),  who  was  strictly  contem 
porary  with  Edwards,  was  a  contrast  to  him  in  every  respect. 
As  Edwards  represents  the  spirituality  and  other-worldliness 
of  Puritanism,  Franklin  stands  for  the  worldly  and  secular 
side  of  American  character,  and  he  illustrates  the  develop 
ment  of  the  New  England  Englishman  into  the  modern 
Yankee.  Clear  rather  than  subtle,  without  ideality  or  ro 
mance  or  fineness  of  emotion  or  poetic  lift,  intensely  practi 
cal  and  utilitarian,  broad-minded,  inventive,  shrewd,  versatile, 
Franklin's  sturdy  figure  became  typical  of  his  time  and  his 
people.  He  was  the  first  and  the  only  man  of  letters  in 
colonial  America  who  acquired  a  cosmopolitan  fame  and  im 
pressed  his  characteristic  Americanism  upon  the  mind  of 
Europe.  He  was  the  embodiment  of  common  sense  and  of 
the  useful  virtues,  with  the  enterprise  but  without  the  nerv 
ousness  of  his  modern  compatriots,  uniting  the  philosopher's 
openness  of  mind  to  the  sagacity  and  quickness  of  resource  of 
the  self-made  business  man.  He  was  representative  also  of  his 
age,  an  age  of  aufklarung,  edaircissement,  or  "  clearing  up." 
By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  change  had  taken 
place  in  American  society.  Trade  had  increased  between 
the  different  colonies  ;  Boston,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia 
were  considerable  towns;  democratic  feeling  was  spreading; 
over  forty  newspapers  were  published  in  America  at  the  out 
break  of  the  Revolution;  politics  claimed  more  attention 
than  formerly,  and  theology  less.  With  all  this  intercourse 
and  mutual  reaction  of  the  various  colonies  upon  one  another, 
the  isolated  theocracy  of  New  England  naturally  relaxed 
somewhat  of  its  grip  on  the  minds  of  the  laity.  When 
Franklin  was  a  printer's  apprentice  in  Boston,  setting  type 
on  his  brother's  New  England  Courant,  the  fourth  American 


38  INTITIAT,  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

newspaper,  lie  got  hold  of  an  odd  volume  of  the  Spectator, 
and  formed  his  style  upon  Addison,  whose  manner  he  after 
ward  imitated  in  his  Busy-Body  papers  in  the  Philadelphia 
Weekly  Mercury.  He  also  read  Locke  and  the  English  deist- 
ical  writers,  Collins  and  Shaftesbury,  and  became  himself  a 
deist  and  free-thinker;  and  subsequently  when  practicing  his 
trade  in  London,  in  1724-26,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Dr.  Mandeville,  author  of  the  Fable  of  the  Bees,  at  a  pale- 
ale  house  in  Cheapside,  called  "  The  Horns,"  where  the  famous 
free-thinker  presided  over  a  club  of  wits  and  boon  compan 
ions.  Though  a  native  of  Boston,  Franklin  is  identified  with 
Philadelphia,  whither  he  arrived  in  1723,  a  runaway  'prentice 
boy,  "  whose  stock  of  cash  consisted  of  a  Dutch  dollar  and 
about  a  shilling  in  copper."  The  description  in  his  Autobi- 
ography  of  his  walking  up  Market  Street  munching  a  loaf 
of  bread,  and  passing  his  future  wife,  standing  on  her  father's 
doorstep,  has  become  almost  as  familiar  as  the  anecdote  about 
Whittington  and  his  cat. 

It  wras  in  the  practical  sphere  that  Franklin  was  greatest, 
as  an  originator  and  executor  of  projects  for  the  general  wel 
fare.  The  list  of  his  public  services  is  almost  endless.  He 
organized  the  Philadelphia  fire  department  and  street-clean 
ing  service,  and  the  colonial  postal  system  which  grew  into 
the  United  States  Post  Office  Department.  He  started  the 
Philadelphia  public  library,  the  American  Philosophical  So 
ciety,  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  the  first  American 
magazine,  The  General  Magazine  and  Historical  Chronicle; 
so  that  he  was  almost  singly  the  father  of  whatever  intellect 
ual  life  the  Pennsylvania  colony  could  boast.  In  1754,  when 
commissioners  from  the  colonies  met  at  Albany,  Franklin 
proposed  a  plan,  which  was  adopted,  for  the  union  of  all 
the  colonies  under  one  government.  But  all  these  things,  as 
well  as  his  mission  to  England  in  1757,  on  behnlf  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Assembly  in  its  dispute  with  the  proprietaries; 
his  share  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence — of  wrhich  he 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  89 

was*  one  of  the  signers — and  his  residence  in  France  as  em- 
bassador  of  the  United  Colonies,  belong  to  the  political 
history  of  the  country;  to  the  history  of  American  science 
belong  his  celebrated  experiments  in  electricity;  and  his 
benefits  to  mankind  in  both  of  these  departments  were 
aptly  summed  up  in  the  famous  epigram  of  the  French 
statesman  Turgot: 

"  Eripuit  coelo  fulmen  eceptrumque  tyrannis" 

Franklin's  success  in  Europe  was  such  as  no  American  had 
yet  achieved,  as  few  Americans  since  him  have  achieved. 
Hume  and  Voltaire  were  among  his  acquaintances  and  his 
professed  admirers.  In  France  he  was  fairly  idolized,  and 
when  he  died  Mirabeau  announced,  "  The  genius  which  has 
freed  America  and  poured  a  flood  of  light  over  Europe  has 
returned  to  the  bosom  of  the  Divinity." 

Franklin  was  a  great  man,  but  hardly  a  great  writer,  though 
as  a  writer,  too,  he  had  many  admirable  and  some  great  qual 
ities.  Among  these  were  the  crystal  clearness  and  simplicity 
of  his  style.  His  more  strictly  literary  performances,  such 
as  his  essays  after  the  Spectator,  hardly  rise  above  mediocrity, 
and  are  neither  better  nor  worse  than  other  imitations  of 
Addison.  But  in  some  of  his  lighter  bagatelles  there  are  a 
homely  wisdom  and  a  charming  playfulness  which  have  won 
them  enduring  favor.  Such  are. his  famous  story  of  the 
Whistle,  his  Dialogue  between  Franklin  and  the  Gout,  his 
letters  to  Madame  Helvetius,  and  his  verses  entitled  Paper. 
The  greater  portion  of  his  writings  consists  of  papers  on  gen 
eral  politics,  commerce,  and  political  economy,  contributions 
to  the  public  questions  of  his  day.  These  are  of  the  nature 
of  journalism  rather  than  of  literature,  and  many  of  them 
were  published  in  his  newspaper,  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette, 
the  medium  through  which  for  many  years  he  most  strongly 
influenced  American  opinion.  The  most  popular  of  his 
writings  were  his  Autobiography  and  Poor  Richards  Alma- 


40  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

nac.  The  former  of  these  was  begun  in  1771,  resumed  in 
1788,  but  never  completed.  It  has  remained  the  most 
widely  current  book  in  our  colonial  literature.  Poor  Ricli- 
arcPs  Almanac,  begun  in  1732  and  continued  for  about 
twenty-five  years,  had  an  annual  circulation  of  ten  thou 
sand  copies.  It  was  filled  with  proverbial  sayings  in 
prose  and  verse,  inculcating  the  virtues  of  industry,  honesty, 
and  frugality.1  Some  of  these  were  original  with  Franklin, 
others  were  selected  from  the  proverbial  wisdom  of  the  ages, 
but  a  new  force  was  given  them  by  pungent  turns  of  expres 
sion.  Poor  Richard's  saws  were  such  as  these:  "Little 
strokes  fell  great  oaks;"  "Three  removes  are  as  bad  as  a 
fire;"  "Early  to  bed  and  early  to  rise  makes  a  man  healthy, 
wealthy,  and  wise;"  "Never  leave  that  till  to-morrow  which 
you  can  do  to-day;"  "What  maintains  one  vice  would  bring 
up  two  children;"  "It  is  hard  for  an  empty  bag  to  stand 
upright." 

Now  and  then  there  are  truths  of  a  higher  kind  than  these 
in  Franklin,  and  Sainte-Beuve,  the  great  French  critic,  quotes, 
as  an  example  of  his  occasional  finer  moods,  the  saying, 
"Truth  and  sincerity  have  a  certain  distinguishing  native 
luster  about  them  which  cannot  be  counterfeited  ;  they  are 
like  fire  and  flame  that  cannot  be  painted."  But  the  sage 
who  invented  the  Franklin  stove  had  no  disdain  of  small  util 
ities;  and  in  general  the  tast  word  of  his  philosophy  is  well 
expressed  in  a  passage  of  his  Autobiography  :  "  Human  felic 
ity  is  produced  not  so  much  by  great  pieces  of  good  fortune, 
that  seldom  happen,  as  by  little  advantages  that  occur  every 
day;  thus,  if  you  teach  a  poor  young  man  to  shave  himself 
and  keep  his  razor  in  order,  you  may  contribute  more  to 
the  happiness  of  his  life  than  in  giving  him  a  thousand 
guineas." 

1  The  Way  to  Wealth,  Plan  for  Saving  One  Hundred  Thousand  Pounds, 
Rules  of  Health,  Advice  to  a  Young  Tradesman,  The  Way  to  Make  Money  Plenty 
in  Every  Man's  Pocket,  etc. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  41 

1.  Captain  John  Smith.     A   True  delation  of  Virginia. 
Deane's  edition.     Boston:  1866. 

2.  Cotton  Mather.     Magnolia  Christi  Americana.     Hart 
ford:  1820. 

3.  Samuel  Sewall.     Diary.     Massachusetts  Historical  Col 
lections.     Fifth  Series.     Vols.  v,  vi,  and  vii.     Boston:  1878. 

4.  Jonathan  Edwards.     Eight  Sermons  on  Various  Occa 
sions.      Vol.  vii  of  Edwards's  Works.      Edited  by  Sereno 
Dwight.     New  York:  1829. 

5.  Benjamin  Franklin.     Autobiography.     Edited  by  John 
Bigelow.     Philadelphia:  1869.     [J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co.] 

6.  Essays  and  Bagatelles.     Vol.  ii  of  Franklin's  Works. 
Edited  by  Jared  Sparks.     Boston;  1836. 

7.  Moses  Coit  Tyler.    A  History  of  American  Literature. 
1607-1765.     New  York:  1878.     [G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.] 


42  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD. 
1765-1815. 

IT  will  be  convenient  to  treat  the  fifty  years  which  elapsed 
between  the  meeting  at  New  York,  in  1765,  of  a  Congress  of 
delegates  from  nine  colonies  to  protest  against  the  Stamp 
Act,  and  the  close  of  the  second  war  with  England,  in  1815, 
as,  for  literary  purposes,  a  single  period.  This  half -century 
was  the  formative  era  of  the  American  nation.  Historically, 
it  is  divisible  into  the  years  of  revolution  and  the  years  of 
construction.  But  the  men  who  led  the  movement  for  inde 
pendence  were  also,  in  great  part,  the  same  who  guided  in 
shaping  the  Constitution  of  the  new  republic,  and  the  intel 
lectual  impress  of  the  whole  period  is  one  and  the  same.  The 
character  of  the  age  was  as  distinctly  political  as  that  of  the  co 
lonial  era — in  New  England  at  least — was  theological ;  and  lit 
erature  must  still  continue  to  borrow  its  interest  from  history. 
Pure  literature,  or  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  we  call 
belles  lettres,  was  not  born  in  America  until  the  nineteenth 
century  was  well  under  way.  It  is  true  that  the  Revolution 
had  its  humor,  its  poetry,  and  even  its  fiction  ;  but  these 
were  strictly  for  the  home  market.  They  hardly  penetrated 
the  consciousness  of  Europe  at  all,  and  are  not  to  be  compared 
with  the  contemporary  work  of  English  authors  like  Cowper 
and  Sheridan  and  Burke.  Their  importance  for  us  to-day  is 
rather  antiquarian  than  literary,  though  the  most  noteworthy 
of  them  will  be  mentioned  in  due  course  in  the  present  chap 
ter.  It  is  also  true  that  one  or  two  of  Irving' s  early  books  fall 
within  the  last  years  of  the  period  now  under  consideration. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  43 

But  literary  epochs  overlap  one  another  at  the  edges,  and 
these  writings  may  best  be  postponed  to  a  subsequent 
chapter. 

Among  the  most  characteristic  products  of  the  intellectual 
stir  that  preceded  and  accompanied  the  Revolutionary  move 
ment  were  the  speeches  of  political  orators  like  Samuel 
Adams,  James  Otis,  and  Josiah  Quincy,  in  Massachusetts, 
and  Patrick  Henry  in  Virginia.  Oratory  is  the  art  of  a  free 
people,  and  as  in  the  forensic  assemblies  of  Greece  and  Rome 
and  in  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  so  in  the  conventions 
and  congresses  of  Revolutionary  America  it  sprang  up  and 
flourished  naturally.  The  age,  moreover,  was  an  eloquent, 
not  to  say  a  rhetorical,  age;  and  the  influence  of  Johnson's 
orotund  prose,  of  the  declamatory  Letters  of  Junius,  and  of 
the  speeches  of  Burke,  Fox,  Sheridan,  and  the  elder  Pitt  is 
perceptible  in  the  debates  of  our  early  Congresses.  The  fame 
of  a  great  orator,  like  that  of  a  great  actor,  is  largely  tradition 
ary.  The  spoken  word  transferred  to  the  printed  page  loses 
the  glow  which  resided  in  the  man  and  the  moment.  A 
speech  is  good  if  it  attains  its  aim,  if  it  moves  the  hearers  to 
the  end  which  is  sought.  But  the  fact  that  this  end  is  often 
temporary  and  occasional,  rather  than  universal  and  perma 
nent,  explains  why  so  few  speeches  are  really  literature.  If 
this  is  true,  even  where  the  words  of  an  orator  are  preserved 
exactly  as  they  were  spoken,  it  is  doubly  true  when  we  have 
only  the  testimony  of  contemporaries  as  to  the  effect  which 
the  oration  produced.  The  fiery  utterances  of  Adams,  Otis, 
and  Quincy  were  either  not  reported  at  all  or  very  imper 
fectly  reported,  so  that  posterity  can  judge  of  them  only  at 
second-hand.  Patrick  Henry  has  fared  better,  many  of  his 
orations  being  preserved  in  substance,  if  not  in  the  letter,  in 
"VVirt's  biography.  Of  these  the  most  famous  was  the  defiant 
speech  in  the  Convention  of  Delegates,  March  28,  1775, 
throwing  down  the  gauge  of  battle  to  the  British  ministry. 
The  ringing  sentences  of  this  challenge  are  still  declaimed  by 


44  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

school-boys,  and  many  of  them  remain  as  familiar  as  house 
hold  words.  "  I  have  but  one  lamp  by  which  my  feet  are 
guided,  and  that  is  the  lamp  of  experience.  I  know  of  no 
way  of  judging  of  the  future  but  by  the  past.  .  .  .  Gentle 
men  may  cry  peace,  peace,  but  there  is  no  peace.  ...  Is  life 
so  dear,  or  peace  so  sweet,  as  to  be  purchased  at  the  price  of 
chains  and  slavery  ?  Forbid  it,  Almighty  God !  I  know  not 
what  course  others  may  take,  but  as  for  me,  give  me  liberty, 
or  give  me  death  !  "  The  eloquence  of  Patrick  Henry  was 
fervid  rather  than  weighty  or  rich.  But  if  such  specimens 
of  the  oratory  of  the  American  patriots  as  have  come  down 
to  us  fail  to  account  for  the  wonderful  impression  that  their 
words  are  said  to  have  produced  upon  their  fellow-country 
men,  we  should  remember  that  they  are  at  a  disadvantage 
when  read  instead  of  heard.  The  imagination  should  supply 
all  those  accessories  which  gave  them  vitality  when  first  pro 
nounced — the  living  presence  and  voice  of  the  speaker  ;  the 
listening  Senate;  the  grave  excitement  of  the  hour  and  of  the 
impending  conflict.  The  wordiness  and  exaggeration  ;  the 
highly  Latinized  diction;  the  rhapsodies  about  freedom  which 
hundreds  of  Fourth-of-July  addresses  have  since  turned  into 
platitudes — all  these  coming  hot  from  the  lips  of  men  whose 
actions  in  the  field  confirmed  the  earnestness  of  their  speech 
—were  effective  in  the  crisis  and  for  the  purpose  to  which 
they  were  addressed. 

The  press  was  an  agent  in  the  cause  of  liberty  no  less  po 
tent  than  the  platform,  and  patriots  such  as  Adams,  Otis, 
Quincy,  "Warren,  and  Hancock  wrote  constantly,  for  the  news 
papers,  essays  and  letters  on  the  public  questions  of  the  time 
signed  "Vindex,"  "Hyperion,"  "Independent,"  "Brutus," 
"  Cassius,"  and  the  like,  and  couched  in  language  which  to 
the  taste  of  to-day  seems  rather  over-rhetorical.  Among  the 
most  important  of  these  political  essays  were  the  Circular 
Letter  to  each  Colonial  Legislature,  published  by  Adams  and 
Otis  in  1768;  Quincy 's  Observations  on  the  Boston  Port  Bill, 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  45 

1774,  and  Otis's  Rights  of  the  British  Colonies,  a  pamphlet 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty  pages,  printed  in  1764.  No 
collection  of  Otis's  writings  has  ever  been  made.  The  life 
of  Quincy,  published  by  his  son,  preserves  for  posterity  his 
journals  and  correspondence,  his  newspaper  essays,  and  his 
speeches  at  the  bar,  taken  from  the  Massachusetts  law 
reports. 

Among  the  political  literature  which  is  of  perennial  in 
terest  to  the  American  people  are  such  State  documents  as 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  messages,  inaugural  addresses,  and 
other  writings  of  our  early  presidents.  Thomas  Jefferson, 
the  third  President  of  the  United  States,  and  the  father  of 
the  Democratic  party,  was  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  whose  opening  sentences  have  become  com 
monplaces  in  the  memory'  of  all  readers.  One  sentence  in 
particular  has  been  as  a  shibboleth,  or  war-cry,  or  declara 
tion  of  faith  among  Democrats  of  all  shades  of  opinion: 
"  We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident — that  all  men  are 
created  equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  inalienable  rights;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  Not  so  familiar  to  modern 
readers  is  the  following,  which  an  English  historian  of  our 
literature  calls  "  the  most  eloquent  clause  of  that  great  doc 
ument,"  and  "  the  most  interesting  suppressed  passage  in 
American  literature."  Jefferson  was  a  Southerner,  but  even 
at  that  early  day  the  South  had  grown  sensitive  on  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery,  and  Jefferson's  arraignment  of  King  George 
for  promoting  the  u  peculiar  institution  "  was  left  out  from 
the  final  draft  of  the  Declaration  in  deference  to  Southern 
members. 

"  He  has  waged  cruel  war  against  human  nature  itself, 
violating  its  most  sacred  rights  of  life  and  liberty,  in  the 
persons  of  a  distant  people  who  never  offended  him,  cap 
tivating  and  carrying  them  into  slavery  in  another  hemi- 


46  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

sphere,  or  to  incur  miserable  death  in  their  transportation 
thither.  This  piratical  warfare,  the  opprobrium  of  infidel 
powers,  is  the  warfare  of  the  Christian  king  of  Great 
Britain.  Determined  to  keep  open  a  market  where  men 
should  be  bought  and  sold,  he  has  prostituted  his  negative 
by  suppressing  every  legislative  attempt  to  restrain  this 
execrable  commerce.  And,  that  this  assemblage  of  horrors 
might  want  no  fact  of  distinguished  dye,  he  is  now  exciting 
those  very  people  to  rise  in  arms  against  us  and  purchase 
that  liberty  of  which  he  deprived  them  by  murdering  the 
people  upon  whom  he  obtruded  them,  and  thus  paying  off 
former  crimes  committed  against  the  liberties  of  one  people 
by  crimes  which  he  urges  them  to  commit  against  the  lives 
of  another." 

The  tone  of  apology  or  defense  which  Calhoun  and  other 
Southern  statesman  afterward  adopted  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  was  not  taken  by  the  men  of  Jefferson's  generation. 
Another  famous  Virginian,  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  him 
self  a  slave-holder,  in  his  speech  on  the  militia  bill  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  December  10, 1811,  said  :  ".I  speak 
from  facts  when  I  say  that  the  night-bell  never  tolls  for 
fire  in  Richmond  that  the  mother  does  not  hug  her  infant 
more  closely  to  her  bosom."  This  was  said  apropos  of  the 
danger  of  a  servile  insurrection  in  the  event  of  a  war  with 
England — a  war  which  actually  broke  out  in  the  year  follow 
ing,  but  was  not  attended  with  the  slave-rising  which  Ran 
dolph  predicted.  Randolph  was  a  thorough -going  "State 
rights"  man,  and,  though  opposed  to  slavery  on  principle, 
he  cried  "  Hands  off ! "  to  any  interference  by  the  general 
government  with  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  States. 
His  speeches  read  better  than  most  of  his  contemporaries'. 
They  are  interesting  in  their  exhibit  of  a  bitter  and  eccen 
tric  individuality,  witty,  incisive,  and  expressed  in  a  pungent 
and  familiar  style  which  contrasts  refreshingly  with  the 
diplomatic  language  and  glittering  generalities  of  most 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  47 

congressional  oratory,  whose  verbiage  seems  to  keep  its  sub 
ject  always  at  arm's-length. 

Another  noteworthy  writing  of  Jefferson's  was  his  In 
augural  Address  of  March  4,  1801,  with  its  programme  of 
"equal  and  exact  justice  to  all  men,  of  wtiatever  state  or 
persuasion,  religious  or  political  ;  peace,  commerce,  and 
honest  friendship  with  all  nations,  entangling  alliances  with 
none ;  the  support  of  the  State  governments  in  all  their 
rights;  .  .  .  absolute  acquiescence  in  the  decisions  of  the 
majority;  .  .  .  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  over  the  military 
authority;  economy  in  the  public  expense;  freedom  of  relig 
ion,  freedom  of  the  press,  and  freedom  of  person  under  the 
protection  of  the  habeas  corpus,  and  trial  by  juries  impar 
tially  selected." 

During  his  six  years'  residence  in  France,  as  American 
minister,  Jefferson  had  become  indoctrinated  with  the  prin 
ciples  of  French  democracy.  His  main  service  and  that  of 
his  party — the  Democratic,  or,  as  it  was  then  called,  the 
Republican  party — to  the  young  republic  was  in  its  insistence 
upon  toleration  of  all  beliefs  and  upon  the  freedom  of  the 
individual  from  all  forms  of  governmental  restraint.  Jeffcr- 

O 

son  has  some  claims  to  rank  as  an  author  in  general  litera 
ture.  Educated  at  William  and  Mary  College  in  the  old 
Virginia  capital,  Williamsburg,  he  became  the  founder  of 
the  University  of  Virginia,  in  which  he  made  special  pro 
vision  for  the  study  of  Anglo-Saxon,  and  in  which  the 
liberal  scheme  of  instruction  and  discipline  was  conformed, 
in  theory,  at  least,  to  the  "  university  idea."  His  Notes  on 
Virginia  are  not  without  literary  quality,  and  one  descrip 
tion,  in  particular,  has  been  often  quoted — the  passage  of 
the  Potomac  through  the  Blue  Ridge — in  which  is  this 
poetically  imaginative  touch  :  "  The  mountain  being  cloven 
asunder,  she  presents  to  your  eye,  through  the  cleft,  a  small 
catch  of  smooth  blue  horizon,  at  an  infinite  distance  in  the 
plain  country,  inviting  you,  as  it  were,  from  the  riot  and 


48  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

tumult  roaring  around,  to  pass  through  the  breach  and  par 
ticipate  of  the  calm  below." 

After  the  conclusion  of  peace  with  England,  in  1783,  polit 
ical  discussion  centered  about  the  Constitution,  which  in 
1788  took  the  place  of  the  looser  Articles  of  Confederation 
adopted  in  1778.  The  Constitution  as  finally  ratified  was  a 
compromise  between  two  parties — the  Federalists,  who 
Avanted  a  strong  central  government,  and  the  Anti-Federals 
(afterward  called  Republicans,  or  Democrats),  who  wished 
to  preserve  State  sovereignty.  The  debates  on  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution,  both  in  the  General  Convention  of  the 
States,  which  met  at  Philadelphia  in  1787,  and  in  the  sepa 
rate  State  conventions  called  to  ratify  its  action,  form  a  val 
uable  body  of  comment  and  illustration  upon  the  instrument 
itself.  One  of  the  most  notable  of  the  speeches  in  opposi 
tion  was  Patrick  Henry's  address  before  the  Virginia  Con 
vention.  "  That  this  is  a  consolidated  government,"  he  said, 
"  is  demonstrably  clear  ;  and  the  danger  of  such  a  govern 
ment  is,  to  my  mind,  very  striking."  The  leader  of  the 
Federal  party  was  Alexander  Hamilton,  the  ablest  construct 
ive  intellect  among  the  statesmen  of  our  Revolutionary  era, 
of  whom  Talleyrand  said  that  he  "  had  never  known  his 
equal;"  whom  Guizot  classed  with  "the  men  who  have  best 
known  the  vital  principles  and  fundamental  conditions  of  a 
government  worthy  of  its  name  and  mission."  Hamilton's 
speech  On  the,  Expediency  of  Adopting  the  Federal  Con 
stitution,  delivered  in  the  Convention  of  New  York,  June 
24,  1788,  was  a  masterly  statement  of  the  necessity  and  ad 
vantages  of  the  Union.  But  the  most  complete  exposition 
of  the  constitutional  philosophy  of  the  Federal  party  was 
the  series  of  eighty-five  papers  entitled  the  Federalist, 
printed  during  the  years  1787-88,  and  mostly  in  the  In 
dependent  Journal  of  New  York,  over  the  signature  "  Pub- 
lius."  These  were  the  work  of  Hamilton,  of  John  Jay, 
afterward  chief -justice,  and  of  James  Madison,  afterward 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  49 

President  of  the  United  States.  The  Federalist  papers, 
though  written  in  a  somewhat  ponderous  diction,  are  among 
the  great  landmarks  of  American  history,  and  were  in  them 
selves  a  political  education  to  the  generation  that  read  them. 
Hamilton  was  a  brilliant  and  versatile  figure,  a  persuasive 
orator,  a  forcible  writer,  and  as  secretary  of  the  treasury 
under  Washington  the  foremost  of  American  financiers.  He 
was  killed  in  a  duel  by  Aaron  Burr,  at  Weehawken,  in  1804. 

The  Federalists  were  victorious,  and  under  the  provisions 
of  the  new  Constitution  George  Washington  was  inau 
gurated  first  President  of  the  United  States,  on  March  4, 
1789.  Washington's  writings  have  been  collected  by  Jared 
Sparks.  They  consist  of  journals,  letters,  messages,  ad 
dresses,  and  public  documents,  for  the  most  part  plain  and 
business-like  in  manner,  and  without  any  literary  preten 
sions.  The  most  elaborate  and  the  best  known  of  them  is 
his  Farewell  Address,  issued  on  his  retirement  from  the 
presidency  in  1796.  In  the  composition  of  this  he  was  as 
sisted  by  Madison,  Hamilton,  and  Jay.  It  is  wise  in  sub 
stance  and  dignified,  though  somewhat  stilted  in  expression. 
The  correspondence  of  John  Adams,  second  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  his  Diary,  kept  from  1755-853  should  also 
be  mentioned  as  important  sources  for  a  full  knowledge  of 
this  period. 

In  the  long  life-and-death  struggle  of  Great  Britain  against 
the  French  Republic  and  its  successor,  Napoleon  Bonaparte, 
the  Federalist  party  in  this  country  naturally  sympathized 
with  England,  and  the  Jefferson ian  Democracy  with  France. 
The  Federalists,  who  distrusted  the  sweeping  abstractions  of 
the  French  Revolution  and  clung  to  the  conservative  notions 
of  a  checked  and  balanced  freedom,  inherited  from  English 
precedent,  were  accused  of  monarchical  and  aristocratic  lean 
ings.  On  their  side  they  were  not  slow  to  accuse  their  ad 
versaries  of  French  atheism  and  French  Jacobinism.  By  a 
singular  reversal  of  the  natural  order  of.  things,  the  strength 
4 


50  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  the  Federalist  party  was  in  New  England,  which  was 
socially  democratic,  while  the  strength  of  the  Jeffersonians 
was  in  the  South,  whose  social  structure — owing  to  the  sys 
tem  of  slavery — was  intensely  aristocratic.  The  War  of  1812 
with  England  was  so  unpopular  in  New  England,  by  reason 
of  the  injury  which  it  threatened  to  inflict  on  its  commerce, 
that  the  Hartford  Convention  of  1814  was  more  than  sus 
pected  of  a  design  to  bring  about  the  secession  of  New  En 
gland  from  the  Union.  A  good  deal  of  oratory  was  called 
out  by  the  debates  on  the  commercial  treaty  with  Great 
Britain  negotiated  by  Jay  in  1795,  by  the  Alien  and  Sedition 
Law  of  1798,  and  by  other  pieces  of  Federalist  legislation, 
previous  to  the  downfall  of  that  party  and  the  election  of 
Jefferson  to  the  presidency  in  1800.  The  best  of  the  Feder 
alist  orators  during  those  years  was  Fisher  Ames,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  and  the  best  of  his  orations  was,  perhaps,  his  speech 
on  the  British  treaty  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  April 
18,  1796.  The  speech  was,  in  great  measure,  a  protest 
against  American  chauvinism  and  the  violation  of  interna 
tional  obligations.  "  It  has  been  said  the  world  ought  to 
rejoice  if  Britain  was  sunk  in  the  sea ;  if  where  there  are 
now  men  and  wealth  and  laws  and  liberty  there  was  no 
more  than  a  sand-bank  for  sea-monsters  to  fatten  on;  space 
for  the  storms  of  the  ocean  to  mingle  in  conflict.  .  .  .  What 
is  patriotism  ?  Is  it  a  narrow  affection  for  the  spot  where  a 
man  was  born  ?  Are  the  very  clods  where  we  tread  entitled 
to  this  ardent  preference  because  they  are  greener?  ...  I  see 
no  exception  to  the  respect  that  is  paid  among  nations  to  the 
law  of  good  faith.  ...  It  is  observed  by  barbarians — a  whiff 
of  tobacco-smoke  or  a  string  of  beads  gives  not  merely  bind 
ing  force  but  sanctity  to  treaties.  Even  in  Algiers  a  truce 
may  be  bought  for  money,  but,  when  ratified,  even  Algiers 
is  too  wise  or  too  just  to  disown  and  annul  its  obligation." 
Ames  was  a  scholar,  and  his  speeches  are  more  finished 
and  thoughtful,  more  literary,  in  a  way,  than  those  of  his 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  51 

contemporaries.  His  eulogiums  on  Washington  and  Hamilton 
are  elaborate  tributes,  rather  excessive,  perhaps,  in  laudation 
and  in  classical  allusions.  In  all  the  oratory  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  period  there  is  nothing  equal  in  deep  and  condensed 
energy  of  feeling  to  the  single  clause  in  Lincoln's  Gettys 
burg  Address,  "  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead 
shall  not  have  died  in  vain." 

A  prominent  figure  during  and  after  the  War  of  the  Revo 
lution  was  Thomas  Paine,  or,  as  he  was  somewhat  disrespect 
fully  called,  "  Tom  Paine."  He  was  a  dissenting  minister  who, 
conceiving  himself  ill-treated  by  the  British  government, 
came  to  Philadelphia  in  1774  and  threw  himself  heart  and 
soul  into  the  colonial  cause.  His  pamphlet,  Common  Sense, 
issued  in  1776,  began  with  the  famous  words,  "These  are 
the  times  that  try  men's  souls."  This  was  followed  by  the 
Crisis,  a  series  of  political  essays  advocating  independence 
and  the  establishment  of  a  republic,  published  in  periodical 
form,  though  at  irregular  intervals.  Paine's  rough  and  vig 
orous  advocacy  was  of  great  service  to  the  American  patriots. 
His  writings  were  popular  and  his  arguments  were  of  a  kind 
easily  understood  by  plain  people,  addressing  themselves  to 
the  common  sense,  the  prejudices  and  passions  of  unlettered 
readers.  He  afterward  went  to  France  and  took  an  active 
part  in  the  popular  movement  there,  crossing  swords  with 
Burke  in  his  Rights  of  Man,  1791-92,  written  in  defense  of 
the  French  Revolution.  He  was  one  of  the  two  foreigners 
who  sat  in  the  Convention;  but  falling  under  suspicion  dur 
ing  the  days  of  the  Terror,  he  was  committed  to  the  prison  of 
the  Luxembourg  and  only  released  upon  the  fall  of  Robes 
pierre  July  27,  1794.  While  in  prison  he  wrote  a  portion  of 
his  best-known  work,  the  Age  of  Reason.  This  appeared 
in  two  parts  in  1794  and  1795,  the  manuscript  of  the  first 
part  having  been  intrusted  to  Joel  Barlow,  the  American 
poet,  who  happened  to  be  in  Paris  when  Paine  was  sent 
to  prison. 


52  INITIAL   STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

The  Age  of  Reason  damaged  Paine's  reputation  in  America, 
where  the  name  of  "  Tom  Paine  "  became  a  stench  in  the 
nostrils  of  the  godly  and  a  synonym  for  atheism  and  blas 
phemy.  His  book  was  denounced  from  a  hundred  pulpits, 
and  copies  of  it  were  carefully  locked  away  from  the  sight 
of  "  the  young,"  whose  religious  beliefs  it  might  undermine. 
It  was,  in  effect,  a  crude  and  popular  statement  of  the  de- 
istic  argument  against  Christianity.  "What  the  cutting  logic 
and  persiflage — the  sourire  hideux — of  Voltaire  had  done 
in  France,  Paine,  with  coarser  materials,  essayed  to  do  for 
the  English-speaking  populations.  Deism  was  in  the  air  of 
the  time;  Franklin,  Jefferson,  Ethan  Allen,  Joel  Barlow,  and 
other  prominent  Americans  were  openly  or  unavowedly  de- 
istic.  Free  thought,  somehow,  went  along  with  democratic 
opinions,  and  was  a  part  of  the  liberal  movement  of  the  age. 
Paine  was  a  man  without  reverence,  imagination,  or  religious 
feeling.  He  was  no  scholar,  and  he  was  not  troubled  by 
any  perception  of  the  deeper  and  subtler  aspects  of  *£he  ques 
tions  which  he  touched.  In  his  examination  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  he  insisted  that  the  Bible  was  an  imposi 
tion  and  a  forgery,  full  of  lies,  absurdities,  and  obscenities. 
Supernatural  Christianity,  with  all  its  mysteries  and  mira 
cles,  was  a  fraud  practiced  by  priests  upon  the  people,  and 
churches  were  instruments  of  oppression  in  the  hands  of 
tyrants.  This  way  of  accounting  for  Christianity  would  not 
now  be  accepted  by  even  the  most  "  advanced  "  thinkers. 
The  contest  between  skepticism  and  revelation  has  long  since 
shifted  to  other  grounds.  Both  the  philosophy  and  the 
temper  of  the  Age  of  Reason  belong  to  the  eighteenth  cent 
ury.  But  Paine's  downright  pugnacious  method  of  attack 
was  effective  with  shrewd,  half-educated  doubters;  and  in 
America  well-thumbed  copies  of  his  book  passed  from  hand 
to  hand  in  many  a  rural  tavern  or  store,  where  the  village 
atheist  wrestled  in  debate  with  the  deacon  or  the  school 
master.  Paine  rested  his  argument  against  Christianity 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  53 

upon  the  familiar  grounds  of  the  incredibility  of  miracles, 
the  falsity  of  prophecy,  the  cruelty  or  immorality  of  Moses 
and  David  and  other  Old  Testament  worthies,  the  disagree 
ment  of  the  evangelists  in  their  gospels,  etc.  The  spirit  of 
his  book  and  his  competence  as  a  critic  are  illustrated  by  his 
saying  of  the  New  Testament:  "Any  person  who  could  tell 
a  story  of  an  apparition,  or  of  a  man's  walking,  could  have 
made  such  books,  for  the  story  is  most  wretchedly  told. 
The  sum  total  of  a  parson's  learning  is  a- b,  db,  and  hie,  hcec, 
hoc,  and  this  is  more  than  sufficient  to  have  enabled  them, 
had  they  lived  at  the  time,  to  have  written  all  the  books  of 
the  New  Testament." 

When  we  turn  from  the  political  and  controversial  writ 
ings  of  the  Revolution  to  such  lighter  literature  as  existed, 
we  find  little  that  would  deserve  mention  in  a  more  crowded 
period.  The  few  things  in  this  kind  that  have  kept  afloat  on 
the  current  of  time — rari  ndntes  in  gurgite  vasto — attract 
attention  rather  by  reason  of  their  fewness  than  of  any 
special  excellence  that  they  have.  During  the  eighteentli 
century  American  literature  continued  to  accommodate  itself 
to  changes  of  taste  in  the  old  country.  The  so-called  clas 
sical  or  Augustan  writers  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  re 
placed  other  models  of  style;  the  Spectator  set  the  fashion 
of  almost  all  of  our  lighter  prose,  from  Franklin's  Busybody 
down  to  the  time  of  Irving,  who  perpetuated  the  Addisonian 
tradition  later  than  any  English  writer.  The  influence  of 
Locke,  of  Dr.  Johnson,  and  of  the  parliamentary  orators  has 
already  been  mentioned.  In  poetry  the  example  of  Pope 
was  dominant,  so  that  we  find,  for  example,  William  Living 
ston,  who  became  governor  of  New  Jersey  and  a  member  of 
the  Continental  Congress,  writing  in  1747  a  poem  on  Philo 
sophic  Solitude  which  reproduces  the  tricks  of  Pope's  antith 
eses  and  climaxes  with  the  imagery  of  the  Rape  of  the  Lock, 
and  the  didactic  morality  of  the  Imitations  from  Horace 
and  the  Moral  Essays  : 


54  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

"  Let  ardent  heroes  seek  renown  in  arms, 

Pant  after  fame  and  rush  to  war's  alarms  ; 

To  shining  palaces  let  fools  resort, 

And  dunces  cringe  to  be  esteemed  at  court. 

Mine  be  the  pleasure  of  a  rural  life, 

From  noise  remote  and  ignorant  of  strife, 

Far  from  the  painted  belle  and  white-gloved  beau, 

The  lawless  masquerade  and  midnight  show  ; 

From  ladies,  lap-dogs,  courtiers,  garters,  stars, 

Fops,  fiddlers,  tyrants,  emperors,  and  czars." 

The  most  popular  poem  of  the  Revolutionary  period  was 
John  Trumbull's  McFingal,  published  in  part  at  Philadel 
phia  in  1775,  and  in  complete  shape  at  Hartford  in  1782. 
It  went  through  more  than  thirty  editions  in  America,  and 
was  several  times  reprinted  in  England.  McFingal  was  a 
satire  in  four  cantos,  directed  against  the  American  loyal 
ists,  and  modeled  quite  closely  upon  Butler's  mock  heroic 
poem,  Hudibras.  As  Butler's  hero  sallies  forth  to  put  down 
May  games  and  bear-baitings,  so  the  tory  McFingal  goes  out 
against  the  liberty-poles  and  bonfires  of  the  patriots,  but  is 
tarred  and  feathered,  and  otherwise  ill-entreated,  and  finally  N 
takes  refuge  in  the  camp  of  General  Gage  at  Boston.  The 
poem  is  written  with  smartness  and  vivacity,  attains  often 
to  drollery  and  sometimes  to  genuine  humor.  It  remains 
one  of  the  best, of  American  political  satires,  and  unques 
tionably  the  most  successful  of  the  many  imitations  of  Iludi- 
bras,  whose  manner  it  follows  so  closely  that  some  of  its 
lines,  which  have  passed  into  currency  as  proverbs,  are  gen 
erally  attributed  to  Butler.  For  example: 

"  No  man  e'er  felt  the  halter  draw 
With  good  opinion  of  the  law." 

Or  this: 

"  For  any  man  with  half  an  eye 
What  stands  before  him  may  espy ; 
But  optics  sharp  it  needs,  I  ween, 
To  see  what  is  not  to  be  seen." 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  55 

Trumbull's  wit  did  not  spare  the  vulnerable  points  of  his 
own  countrymen,  as  in  his  sharp  skit  at  slavery  in  the  coup 
let  about  the  newly  adopted  flag  of  the  Confederation: 

"  Inscribed  with  inconsistent  types 
Of  Liberty  and  thirteen  stripes." 

Trumbull  was  one  of  a  group  of  Connecticut  literati,  who 
made  such  noise  in  their  time  as  the  "  Hartford  Wits."  The 
other  members  of  the  group  were  Lemuel  Hopkins,  David 
Humphreys,  Joel  Barlow,  Elihu  Smith,  Theodore  D wight, 
and  Richard  Alsop.  Trumbull,  Humphreys,  and  Barlow 
had  formed  a  friendship  and  a  kind  of  literary  partnership 
at  Yale,  where  they  were  contemporaries  of  each  other  and 
of  Timothy  Dwight.  During  the  war  they  served  in  the 
army  in  various  capacities,  and  at  its  close  they  found  them 
selves  again  together  for  a  few  years  at  Hartford,  where 
they  formed  a  club  that  met  weekly  for  social  and  literary 
purposes.  Their  presence  lent  a  sort  of  eclat  to  the  little 
provincial  capital,  and  their  writings  made  it  for  a  time  an 
intellectual  center  quite  as  important  as  Boston  or  Phila 
delphia  or  New  York.  The  Hartford  Wits  were  stanch 
Federalists,  and  used  their  pens  freely  in  support  of  the  ad 
ministrations  of  Washington  and  Adams,  and  in  ridicule  of 
Jefferson  and  the  Democrats.  In  1786-87  Trumbull,  Hop 
kins,  Barlow,  and  Humphreys  published  in  the  New  Haven 
Gazette  a  series  of  satirical  papers  entitled  the  Anarchiad, 
suggested  by  the  English  Rolliad,  and  purporting  to  be  ex 
tracts  from  an  ancient  epic  on  "  the  Restoration  of  Chaos  and 
Substantial  Night."  The  papers  were  an  effort  to  correct, 
by  ridicule,  the  anarchic  condition  of  things  which  preceded 
the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution  in  1789.  It  was  a 
time  of  great  confusion  and  discontent,  when,  in  parts  of 
the  country,  Democratic  mobs  were  protesting  against  the 
vote  of  five  years'  pay  by  the  Continental  Congress  to  the 
officers  of  the  American  army.  The  Anarchiad  was  followed 


56  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMEKICAN  LETTERS. 

by  the  Echo  and  the  Political  Green  House,  written  mostly 
byAlsopand  Theodore  Dwight,  and  similar  in  character  and 
tendency  to  the  earlier  series.  Time  has  greatly  blunted  the 
edge  of  these  satires,  but  they  were  influential  in  their  day, 
and  are  an  important  part  of  the  literature  of  the  old  Feder 
alist  party. 

Humphreys  became  afterward  distinguished  in  the  diplo 
matic  service,  and  was,  successively,  embassador  to  Portu 
gal  and  to  Spain,  whence  he  introduced  into  America  the 
breed  of  merino  sheep.  He  had  been  on  Washington's  staff 
during  the  war,  and  was  several  times  an  inmate  of  his  house 
at  Mount  Vernon,  where  he  produced,  in  1785,  the  best- 
known  of  his  writings,  Mount  Vernon,  an  ode  of  a  rather 
mild  description,  which  once  had  admirers.  Joel  Barlow 
cuts  a  larger  figure  in  contemporary  letters.  After  leaving 
Hartford,  in  1788,  he  went  to  France,  where  he  resided  for' 
seventeen  years,  made  a  fortune  in  speculations,  and  became 
imbued  with  French  principles,  writing  a  song  in  praise  of 
the  guillotine,  which  gave  great  scandal  to  his  old  friends 
at  home.  In  1805  he  returned  to  America  and  built  a  fine 
residence  near  Washington,  which  he  called  Kalorama.  Bar 
low's  literary  fame,  in  his  own  generation,  rested  upon  his 
prodigious  epic,  the  Colunibiad.  The  first  form  of  this  was 
the  Vision  of  Columbus,  published  at  Hartford  in  1787. 
This  he  afterward  recast  and  enlarged  into  the  ColumMad, 
issued  in  Philadelphia  in  1807,  and  dedicated  to  Robert  Ful 
ton,  the  inventor  of  the  steam-boat.  This  was  by  far  the 
most  sumptuous  piece  of  book-making  that  had  then  been 
published  in  America,  and  was  embellished  with  plates  exe 
cuted  by  the  best  London  engravers. 

The  Columbiad  was  a  grandiose  performance,  and  has 
been  the  theme  of  much  ridicule  by  later  writers.  Haw 
thorne  suggested  its  being  dramatized,  and  put  on  to  the 
accompaniment  of  artillery  and  thunder  and  lightning;  and 
E.  P.  Whipple  declared  that  "no  critic  in  the  last  fifty  years 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  57 

had  read  more  than  a  hundred  lines  of  it."  In  its  ambitious- 
ness  and  its  length  it  was  symptomatic  of  the  spirit  of  the 
age  which  was  patriotically  determined  to  create,  by  tour  de 
force,  a  national  literature  of  a  size  commensurate  with  the 
scale  of  American  nature  and  the  destinies  of  the  republic. 
As  America  was  bigger  than  Argos  and  Troy  we  ought  to 
have  a  bigger  epic  than  the  Iliad.  Accordingly,  Barlow 
makes  Hesper  fetch  Columbus  from  his  prison  to  a  "  hill  of 
vision,"  where  he  unrolls  before  his  eye  a  panorama  of  the 
history  of  America,  or,  as* our  bards  then  preferred  to  call 
it,  Columbia,  lie  shows  him  the  conquest  of  Mexico  by 
Cortez;  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Incas  in 
Peru ;  the  settlements  of  the  English  colonies  in  North 
America;  the  old  French  and  Indian  wars;  the  Revolution, 
ending  with  a  prophecy  of  the  future  greatness  of  the  new 
born  nation.  The  machinery  of  the  Vision  was  borrowed 
from  the  llth  and  12th  books  of  Paradise  Lost.  Barlow's 
verse  was  the  ten-syllabled  rhyming  couplet  of  Pope,  and  his 
poetic  style  was  distinguished  by  the  vague,  glittering  im 
agery  and  the  false  sublimity  which  marked  the  epic  at 
tempts  of  the  Queen  Anne  poets.  Though  Barlow  was  but 
a  masquerader  in  true  heroic  he  showed  himself  a  true  poet 
in  mock  heroic.  His  Hasty  Pudding,  written  in  Savoy  in 
1793,  and  dedicated  to  Mrs.  Washington,  was  thoroughly 
American,  in  subject  at  least,  and  its  humor,  though  over- 
elaborate,  is  good.  One  couplet  in  particular  has  prevailed 
against  oblivion: 

"  E'en  in  thy  native  regions  how  I  blush 
To  hear  the  Pennsylvanians  call  thee  Mush  I " 

Another  Connecticut  poet — one  of  the  seven  who  were 
fondly  named  "The  Pleiads  of  Connecticut" — was  Timothy 
Dwight,  whose  Conquest  of  Canaan,  written  shortly  after 
his  graduation  from  college,  but  not  published  till  1785,  was, 
like  the  Columbiad,  an  experiment  toward  the  domestication 


58  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  the  epic  muse  in  America.  It  was  written  like  Barlow's 
poem,  in  rhymed  couplets,  and  the  patriotic  impulse  of  the 
time  shows  oddly  in  the  introduction  of  our  Revolutionary 
War,  by  way  of  episode,  among  the  wars  of  Israel.  Green 
field  Hilly  1794,  was  an  idyllic  and  moralizing  poem,  de 
scriptive  of  a  rural  parish  in  Connecticut  of  which  the  au 
thor  was  for  a  time  the  pastor.  It  is  not  quite  without 
merit;  shows  plainly  the  influence  of  Goldsmith,  Thomson, 
and  Beattie,  but  as  a  whole  is  tedious  and  tame.  Byron 
was  amused  that  there  should  have  been  an  American  poet 
christened  Timothy,  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  amusement 
would  have  been  the  chief  emotion  kindled  in  the  breast  of 
the  wicked  Voltaire  had  he  ever  chanced  to  see  the  stern 
dedication  to  himself  of  the  same  poet's  Triumph  of  Infidel 
ity,  1788.  Much  more  important  than  D  wight's  poetry  was 
his  able  Theology  Explained  and  Defended,  1794,  a  restate 
ment,  with  modifications,  of  the  Calvinism  of  Jonathan  Ed 
wards,  which  was  accepted  by  the  Congregational  churches 
of  New  England  as  an  authoritative  exponent  of  the  ortho 
doxy  of  the  time.  His  Travels  in  New  England  and  New 
York,  including  descriptions  of  Niagara,  the  White  Mount 
ains,  Lake  George,  the  Catskills,  and  other  passages  of  nat 
ural  scenery,  not  so  familiar  then  as  now,  was  published 
posthumously  in  1821,  was  praised  by  Southey,  and  is  still 
readable.  As  President  of  Yale  College  from  1795  to  1817 
Dwight,  by  his  learning  and  ability,  his  sympathy  with  young 
men,  and  the  force  and  dignity  of  his  character,  exerted  a 
great  influence  in  the  community. 

The  strong  political  bias  of  the  time  drew  into  its  vortex 
most  of  the  miscellaneous  literature  that  was  produced.  A 
number  of  ballads,  serious  and  comic,  whig  and  tory,  deal 
ing  with  the  battles  and  other  incidents  of  the  long  war,  en 
joyed  a  wide  circulation  in  the  newspapers  or  were  hawked 
about  in  printed  broadsides.  Most  of  these  have  no  literary 
merit,  and  are  now  mere  antiquarian  curiosities.  A  favorite 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  59 

piece  on  the  tory  side  was  the  Cow  Chase,  a  cleverish  parody 
on  Chevy  Chase,  written  by  the  gallant  and  unfortunate  Ma 
jor  Andre,  at  the  expense  of  "  Mad  "  Anthony  Wayne.  The 
national  song  Yankee  Doodle  was  evolved  during  the  Revo 
lution,  and,  as  is  the  case  with  John  Broiorfs  Body  and  many 
other  popular  melodies,  some  obscurity  hangs  about  its  ori 
gin.  The  air  was  an  old  one,  and  the  words  of  the  chorus 
seem  to  have  been  adapted  or  corrupted  from  a  Dutch  song, 
and  applied  in  derision  to  the  provincials  by  the  soldiers  of 
the  British  army  as  early  as  1755.  Like  many  another  nick 
name,  the  term  Yankee  Doodle  was  taken  up  by  the  nick 
named  and  proudly  made  their  own.  The  stanza, 

"Yankee  Doodle  came  to  town,"  etc., 

antedates  the  war;  but  the  first  complete  set  of  words  to  the 
tune  was  the  Yankee's  Return  from  Camp,  which  is  appar 
ently  of  the  year  1775.  The  most  popular  humorous  ballad 
on  the  whig  side  was  the  Battle  of  the  Kegs,  founded  on  a 
laughable  incident  of  the  campaign  at  Philadelphia.  This 
was  writen  by  Francis  Hopkinson,  a  Philadelphian,  and  one 
of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Hopkin 
son  has  some  title  to  rank  as  one  of  the  earliest  American 
humorists.  Without  the  keen  wit  of  McFingal,  some  of  his 
Miscellaneous  Essays  and  Occasional  Writings,  published  in 
1792,  have  more  geniality  and  heartiness  than  Trumbull's 
satire.  His  Letter  on  Whitewashing  is  a  bit  of  domestic 
humor  that  foretokens  the  Daiibury  News  man ;  and  his  Mod- 
ern  Learning,  1784,  a  burlesque  on  college  examinations,  in 
which  a  salt-box  is  described  from  the  point  of  view  of  met 
aphysics,  logic,  natural  philosophy,  mathematics,  anatomy,  sur 
gery,  and  chemistry,  long  kept  its  place  in  school-readers  and 
other  collections.  His  son,  Joseph  Hopkinson,  wrote  the 
song  of  Hail  Columbia,  which  is  saved  from  insignificance 
only  by  the  music  to  which  it  was  married,  the  then  popular 
air  of  "  The  President's  March."  The  words  were  written 


60  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

in  1798,  on  the  eve  of  a  threatened  war  with  France,  and  at 
a  time  when  party  spirit  ran  high.  It  was  sung  nightly  by 
crowds  in  the  streets,  and  for  a  whole  season  by  a  favorite 
singer  at  the  theater;  for  by  this  time  there  were  theaters  in 
Philadelphia,  in  New  York,  and  even  in  puritanic  Boston. 
Much  better  than  Hail  Cohimbia  was  the  Star ~ Spangled  Ban 
ner^  the  words  of  which  were  composed  by  Francis  Scott  Key, 
a  Marylander,  during  the  bombardment  by  the  British  of  Fort 
McHenry,  near  Baltimore,  in  1812.  More  pretentious  than 
these  was  the  once  celebrated  ode  of  Robert  Treat  Paine,  Jr., 
Adams  and  Liberty,  recited  at  an  anniversary  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Charitable  Fire  Society.  The  sale  of  this  is  said  to 
have  netted  its  author  over  $750,  but  it  is,  notwithstanding, 
a  very  wooden  performance.  Paine  was  a  young  Harvard 
graduate,  who  had  married  an  actress  playing  at  the  Old 
Federal  Street  Theater,  the  first  play-house  opened  in  Bos 
ton,  in  1794.  His  name  was  originally  Thomas,  but  this 
was  changed  for  him  by  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  be 
cause  he  did  not  wish  to  be  confounded  with  the  author  of 
the  Age  of  Reason.  "Dim  are  those  names  erstwhile  in 
battle  loud,"  and  many  an  old  Revolutionary  worthy  who 
fought  for  liberty  with  sword  and  pen  is  now  utterly  forgot 
ten,  or  remembered  only  by  some  phrase  which  has  become  a 
current  quotation.  Here  and  there  a  line  has,  by  accident, 
survived  to  do  duty  as  a  motto  or  inscription,  while  all 
its  context  is  buried  in  oblivion.  Few  have  read  any 
thing  more  of  Jonathan  M.  Sewall's,  for  example,  than  the 
couplet, 

"  No  pent-up  TJtica  contracts  your  powers, 
But  the  whole  boundless  continent  is  yours," 

taken  from  his  Epilogue  to  Cato,  written  in  1778. 

Another  Revolutionary  poet  was  Philip  Freneau — "that 
rascal  Freneau,"  as  Washington  called  him,  when  annoyed 
by  the  attacks  upon  his  administration  in  Freneau's  National 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  61 

Gazette.  He  was  of  Huguenot  descent,  was  a  class-mate  of 
Madison  at  Princeton  College,  was  taken  prisoner  by  the 
British  during  the  war,  and  when  the  war  was  over  engaged 
in  journalism,  as  an  ardent  supporter  of  Jefferson  and  the 
Democrats.  Freneau's  patriotic  verses  and  political  lam 
poons  are  now  unreadable;  but  he  deserves  to  rank  as  the 
first  real  American  poet,  by  virtue  of  his  Wild  Honeysuckle, 
Indian  Burying-  Ground,  Indian  Student,  and  a  few  other 
little  pieces,  which  exhibit  a  grace  and  delicacy  inherited, 
perhaps,  with  his  French  blood. 

Indeed,  to  speak  strictly,  all  of  the  "  poets  "  hitherto  men 
tioned  were  nothing  but  rhymers;  but  in  Freneau  we  meet 
with  something  of  beauty  and  artistic  feeling;  something 
which  still  keeps  his  verses  fresh.  In  his  treatment  of  In 
dian  themes,  in  particular,  appear  for  the  first  time  a  sense 
of  the  picturesque  and  poetic  elements  in  the  character  and 
wild  life  of  the  red  man,  and  that  pensive  sentiment  which 
the  fading  away  of  the  tribes  toward  the  sunset  has^  left  in 
the  wake  of  their  retreating  footsteps.  In  this  Freneau  antici 
pates  Cooper  and  Longfellow,  though  his  work  is  slight  com 
pared  with  the  Leatherstocking  Tales  or  Hiawatha.  At  the 
time  when  the  Revolutionary  War  broke  out  the  population 
of  the  colonies  was  over  three  millions;  Philadelphia  had 
thirty  thousand  inhabitants,  and  the  frontier  had  retired  to  a 
comfortable  distance  from  the  sea-board.  The  Indian  had 
already  grown  legendary  to  town  dwellers,  and  Freneau 
fetches  his  Indian  Student  not  from  the  outskirts  of  the 
settlement  but  from  the  remote  backwoods  of  the  State: 

"  From  Susquehanna's  farthest  springs, 
Where  savage  tribes  pursue  their  game 

(His  blanket  tied  with  yellow  strings), 
A  shepherd  of  the  forest  came." 

Campbell  "lifted"— in  his  poem  0' Conor's  Child— the 
last  line  of  the  following  stanza  from  Freneau's  Indian 
Burying-  Ground: 


62  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

"  By  midnight  moons,  o'er  moistening  dews, 

In  vestments  for  the  chase  arrayed, 
The  hunter  still  the  deer  pursues — 

The  hunter  and  the  deer,  a  shade." 

And  Walter  Scott  did  Freneau  the  honor  to  borrow,  in 
Marmion,  the  final  line  of  one  of  the  stanzas  of  his  poem  on 
the  battle  of  Eutaw  Springs: 

"They  saw  their  injured  country's  woe, 

The  flaming  town,  the  wasted  field ; 
Then  rushed  to  meet  the  insulting  foe ; 

They  took  the  spear,  but  left  the  shield." 

Scott  inquired  of  an  American  gentleman  who  visited  him 
the  authorship  of  this  poem,  which  he  had  by  heart,  and  pro 
nounced  it  as  fine  a  thing  of  the  kind  as  there  was  in  the 
language. 

The  American  drama  and  American  prose  fiction  had  their 
beginning  during  the  period  now  under  review.  A  company 
of  English  players  came  to  this  country  in  1752  and  made 
the  tour  of  many  of  the  principal  towns.  The  first  play 
acted  here  by  professionals  on  a  public  stage  was  the  Mer 
chant  of  Venice,  which  was  given  by  the  English  company 
at  Williamsburg,  Va.,  in  1752.  The  first  regular  theater 
building  was  at  Annapolis,  Md.,  where  in  the  same  year  this 
troupe  performed,  among  other  pieces,  Farquhar's  Heaiix* 
/Stratagem.  In  1753  a  theater  was  built  in  New  York,  and 
one  in  1759  in  Philadelphia.  The  Quakers  of  Philadelphia 
and  the  Puritans  of  Boston  were  strenuously  opposed  to  the 
acting  of  plays,  and  in  the  latter  city  the  players  were  sev 
eral  times  arrested  during  the  performances,  under  a  Massa 
chusetts  law  forbidding  dramatic  performances.  At  New 
port,  R.  I.,  on  the  other  hand,  which  was  a  health  resort  for 
planters  from  the  Southern  States  and  the  West  Indies,  and 
the  largest  slave-market  in  the  North,  the  actors  were  hospi 
tably  received.  The  first  play  known  to  have  been  written 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  03 

by  an  American  was  the  Prince  of  Parthia,  1765,  a  closet 
drama,  by  Thomas  Godfrey,  of  Philadelphia.  The  first  play 
by  an  American  writer,  acted  by  professionals  in  a  public 
theater,  was  Roy  all  Tyler's  Contrast,  performed  in  New 
York  in  1780.  The  former  of  these  was  very  high  tragedy, 
and  the  latter  very  low  comedy;  and  neither  of  them  is 
otherwise  remarkable  than  as  being  the  first  of  a  long  line  of 
indifferent  dramas.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  American  dramatic 
literature  worth  speaking  of;  not  a  single  American  play  of 
even  the  second  rank,  unless  we  except  a  few  graceful  parlor 
comedies,  like  Mr.  Ho  well's  Elevator  and  Sleeping- Car. 
Roy  all  Tyler,  the  author  of  The  Contrast,  cut  quite  a  figure  in 
his  day  as  a  wit  and  journalist,  and  eventually  became  chief- 
justice  of  Vermont.  His  comedy,  The  Georgia  Spec,  1797, 
had  a  great  run  in  Boston,  and  his  Algerine  Captive,  pub 
lished  in  the  same  year,  was  one  of  the  earliest  American 
novels.  It  was  a  rambling  tale  of  adventure,  constructed 
somewhat  upon  the  plan  of  Smollett's  novels  and  dealing 
with  the  piracies  which  led  to  the  war  between  the  United 
States  and  Algiers  in  1815. 

Charles  Brockden  Brown,  the  first  American  novelist  of 
any  note,  was  also  the  first  professional  man  of  letters  in 
this  country  who  supported  himself  entirely  by  his  pen.  He 
was  born  in  Philadelphia  in  1771,  lived  a  part  of  his  life  in 
New  York  and  part  in  his  native  city,  where  he  started,  in 
1 803,  the  Literary  Magazine  and  American  Register.  During 
the  years  1798-1801  he  published  in  rapid  succession  six 
romances,  Wieland,  Ormond,  Arthur  Mervyn,  Edgar  Hunt- 
ley,  Clara  Howard,  and  Jane  Talbot.  Brown  was  an  invalid 
and  something  of  a  recluse,  with  a  relish  for  the  ghastly  in 
incident  and  the  morbid  in  character.  He  was  in  some 
points  a  prophecy  of  Poe  and  Hawthorne,  though  his  art 
was  greatly  inferior  to  Poe's,  and  almost  infinitely  so  to 
Hawthorne's.  His  books  belong  more  properly  to  the  con 
temporary  school  of  fiction  in  England  which  preceded  the 


64  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

"  Waverley  Novels  " — to  the  class  that  includes  Beckf ord's 
Vathek,  Godwin's  Caleb  Williams  and  St.  Z>eon,  Mrs.  Shel 
ley's  Frankenstein,  and  such  "  Gothic  "  romances  as  Lewis's 
Monk,  Walpole's  Castle  of  Otranto,  and  Mrs.  Radcliffe's 
Mysteries  of  TTdolpho.  A  distinguishing  characteristic  of 
this  whole  school  is  what  we  may  call  the  clumsy-horrible. 
Brown's  romances  are  not  wanting  in  inventive  power,  in 
occasional  situations  that  are  intensely  thrilling,  and  in 
subtle  analysis  of  character;  but  they  are  fatally  defective 
in  art.  The  narrative  is  by  turns  abrupt  and  tiresomcly 
prolix,  proceeding  not  so  much  by  dialogue  as  by  elaborate 
dissection  and  discussion  of  motives  and  states  of  mind,  in 
terspersed  with  the  author's  reflections.  The  wild  improb 
abilities  of  plot  and  the  unnatural  and  even  monstrous  de 
velopments  of  character  are  in  startling  contrast  with  the 
old-fashioned  preciseness  of  the  language ;  the  conversations, 
when  there  are  any,  being  conducted  in  that  insipid  dialect 
in  which  a  fine  woman  was  called  an  "  elegant  female." 
The  following  is  a  sample  description  of  one  of  Brown's 
heroines,  and  is  taken  from  his  novel  of  Ormond,  the  lead 
ing  character  in  which — a  combination  of  unearthly  intel 
lect  with  fiendish  wickedness — is  thought  to  have  been  sug 
gested  by  Aaron  Burr  :  "  Helena  Cleves  was  endowed  with 
every  feminine  and  fascinating  quality.  Her  features  were 
modified  by  the  most  transient  sentiments  and  were  the  seat 
of  a  softness  at  all  times  blushful  and  bewitching.  All 
those  graces  of  symmetry,  smoothness,  and  luster,  which  as 
semble  in  the  imagination  of  the  painter  when  he  calls  from 
the  bosom  of  her  natal  deep  the  Paphian  divinity,  blended 
their  perfections  in  the  shade,  complexion,  and  hair  of  this 
lady."  But,  alas !  "  Helena's  intellectual  deficiencies  could 
not  be  concealed.  She  was  proficient  in  the  elements  of  no 
science.  The  doctrine  of  lines  and  surfaces  was  as  dispro 
portionate  with  her  intellects  as  with  those  of  the  mock- 
bird.  She  had  not  reasoned  on  the  principles  of  human 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD.  65 

action,  nor  examined  the  structure  of  society.  .  .  .  She 
could  not  commune  in  their  native  dialect  with  the  sages  of 
Rome  and  Athens.  .  .  .  The  constitution  of  nature,  the  at 
tributes  of  its  Author,  the  arrangement  of  the  parts  of  the 
external  universe,  and  the  substance,  modes  of  operation, 
and  ultimate  destiny  of  human  intelligence  were  enigmas 
unsolved  and  insoluble  by  her." 

Brown  frequently  raises  a  superstructure  of  mystery  on  a 
basis  ludicrously  weak.  Thus  the  hero  of  his  first  novel, 
Wieland  (whose  father  anticipates  "  Old  Krook,"  in  Dickens's 
Bleak  House,  by  dying  of  spontaneous  combustion),  is  led 
on  by  what  he  mistakes  for  spiritual  voices  to  kill  his  wife 
and  children;  and  the  voices  turn  out  to  be  produced  by 
the  ventriloquism  of  one  Carwin,  the  villain  of  the  story. 
Similarly  in  Edgar  Huntley,  the  plot  turns  upon  the  phenomena 
of  sleep-walking.  Brown  had  the  good  sense  to  place  the 
scene  of  his  romances  in  his  own  country,  and  the  only  pas 
sages  in  them  which  have  now  a  living  interest  are  his 
descriptions  of  wilderness  scenery  in  Edgar  Huntley,  and 
his  graphic  account  in  Arthur  Mervyn  of  the  yellow-fever 
epidemic  in  Philadelphia  in  1793.  Shelley  was  an  admirer 
of  Brown,  and  his  experiments  in  prose  fiction,  such  as 
Zastrozzi  and  St.  Irvyne  the  JRosicrucian,  are  of  the  same 
abnormal  and  speculative  type. 

Another  book  which  falls  within  this  period  was  the 
Journal,  1774,  of  John  Woolman,  a  New  Jersey  Quaker, 
which  has  received  the  highest  praise  from  Channing, 
Charles  Lamb,  and  many  others.  "  Get  the  writings  of  John 
Woolman  by  heart,"  wrote  Lamb,  "  and  love  the  early  Quak 
ers."  The  charm  of  this  journal  resides  in  its  singular 
sweetness  and  innocence  of  feeling,  the  "  deep  inward  still 
ness"  peculiar  to  the  people  called  Quakers.  Apart  from 
his  constant  use  of  certain  phrases  peculiar  to  the  Friends 
Woolman's  English  is  also  remarkably  graceful  and  pure,  the 
transparent  medium  of  a  soul  absolutely  sincere,  and  tender 
5 


66  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

and  humble  in  its  sincerity.  When  not  working  at  his  trade  as 
a  tailor  Woolman  spent  his  time  in  visiting  and  ministering 
to  the  monthly,  quarterly,  and  yearly  meetings  of  Friends, 
traveling  on  horseback  to  their  scattered  communities  in  the 
backwoods  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  and  northward 
along  the  coast  as  far  as  Boston  and  Nantucket.  He  was 
under  a  "concern"  and  a  "heavy  exercise"  touching  the 
keeping  of  slaves,  and  by  his  writing  and  speaking  did 
much  to  influence  the  Quakers  against  slavery.  His  love 
went  out,  indeed,  to  all  the  wretched  and  oppressed  ;  to 
sailors,  and  to  the  Indians  in  particular.  One  of  his  most 
perilous  journeys  was  made  to  the  settlements  of  Moravian 
Indians  in  the  wilderness  of  western  Pennsylvania,  at 
Bethlehem,  and  at  Wehaloosing,  on  the  Susquehanna. 
Some  of  the  scruples  which  Woolman  felt,  and  the  quaint 
naivete  with  which  he  expresses  them,  may  make  the  modern 
reader  smile,  but  it  is  a  smile  which  is  very  close  to  a  tear. 
Thus,  when  in  England — where  he  died  in  1772 — he  would 
not  ride  nor  send  a  letter  by  mail-coach,  because  the  poor 
post-boys  were  compelled  to  ride  long  stages  in  winter  nights, 
and  were  sometimes  frozen  to  death.  "So  great  is  the 
hurry  in  the  spirit  of  this  world  that,  in  aiming  to  do  business 
quickly  and  to  gain  wealth,  the  creation  at  this  day  doth 
loudly  groan."  Again,  having  reflected  that  war  was  caused 
by  luxury  in  dress,  etc.,  the  use  of  dyed  garments  grew  un 
easy  to  him,  and  he  got  and  wore  a  hat  of  the  natural  color 
of  the  fur.  "  In  attending  meetings  this  singularity  was  a 
trial  to  me,  .  .  .  and  some  Friends,  who  knew  not  from  what 
motives  I  wore  it,  grew  shy  of  me.  .  .  .  Those  who  spoke 
with  me  I  generally  informed,  in  a  few  words,  that  I  be 
lieved  my  wearing  it  was  not  in  my  own  will." 

1.  Representative  American   Orations.     Edited  by  Alex 
ander  Johnston.     New  York  :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.     1884. 

2.  The  Federalist.     New  York:  Charles  Scribner.     1863. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PEKIOD.  67 

3.  Notes   on    Virginia.     By    Thomas   Jefferson.     Boston. 
1829. 

4.  Travels  in  New  England  and  New  York.     By  Timothy 
D wight.     New  Haven.     1821. 

5.  McFingal:  in  Trumbull's  Poetical  Works.     Hartford. 
1820. 

6.  Joel  Barlow's   Hasty  Pudding.     Francis  Hopkinson's 
Modern  Learning.     Philip   Freneau's  Indian   Student,  In 
dian  Bury  ing -Ground,  and  White  Honeysuckle:  in  Vol.  I 
of  Duyckinck's  Cyclopedia  of  American  Literature.     New 
York:  Charles  Scribner.     186G. 

7.  Arthur  Mervyn.     By  Charles  Brockden  Brown.     Bos 
ton:  S.  G.  Goodrich.     3827. 

8.  The  Journal  of  John    Woolman.     With   an  Introduc 
tion  by  John   G.   Whittier.     Boston:  James  R.  Osgood  & 
Co.     1871. 

0=  American  Literature.  By  Charles  F.  Richardson. 
New  York:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1887. 

10.  American  Literature.  By  John  Nichol.  Edinburgh: 
Adam  &  Charles  Black.  1882. 


INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION. 
1815-1837. 

THE  attempt  to  preserve  a  strictly  chronological  order 
must  here  be  abandoned.  About  all  the  American  literature 
in  existence  that  is  of  any  value  as  literature  is  the  product 
of  the  past  three  quarters  of  a  century,  and  the  men  who  pro 
duced  it,  though  older  or  younger,  were  still  contemporaries. 
Irving's  Knickerbocker's  History  of  JVew  York,  1809,  was 
published  within  the  recollection  of  some  yet  living,  and  the 
venerable  poet  Richard  H.  Dana — Irving's  junior  by  only 
four  years — survived  to  1879,  when  the  youngest  of  the  gen 
eration  of  writers  that  now  occupy  public  attention  had 
already  won  their  spurs.  Bryant,  whose  Thanatopsis  was 
printed  in  1816,  lived  down  to  1878.  He  saw  the  beginnings 
of  our  national  literature,  and  he  saw  almost  as  much  of  the 
latest  phase  of  it  as  we  see  to-day  in  this  year  1891.  Still, 
even  within  the  limits  of  a  single  life-time,  there  have  been 
progress  and  change.  And  so,  while  it  will  happen  that  the 
consideration  of  writers,  a  part  of  whose  work  falls  between 
the  dates  at  the  head  of  this  chapter,  may  be  postponed  to 
subsequent  chapters,  we  may  in  a  general  way  follow  the  se 
quence  of  time. 

The  period  between  the  close  of  the  second  war  with  En 
gland,  in  1815,  and  the  great  financial  crash  of  1837,  has 
been  called,  in  language  attributed  to  President  Monroe, 
"  the  era  of  good  feeling."  It  was  a  time  of  peace  and 
prosperity,  of  rapid  growth  in  population  and  rapid  exten 
sion  of  territory.  The  new  nation  was  entering  upon  its 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION.  69 

vast  estates  and  beginning  to  realize  its  manifest  destiny. 
The  peace  with  Great  Britain,  by  calling  off  the  Canadian 
Indians  and  the  other  tribes  in  alliance  with  England,  had 
opened  up  the  North-west  to  settlement.  Ohio  had  been 
admitted  as  a  State  in  1802;  but  at  the  time  of  President 
Monroe's  tour,  in  1817,  Cincinnati  had  only  seven  thousand 
inhabitants,  and  half  of  the  State  was  unsettled.  The  Ohio 
River  flowed  for  most  of  its  course  through  an  unbroken 
wilderness.  Chicago  was  merely  a  fort.  Hitherto  the  emi 
gration  to  the  West  had  been  sporadic;  now  it  took  on  the 
dimensions  of  a  general  and  almost  a  concerted  exodus. 
This  movement  was  stimulated  in  New  England  by  the  cold 
summer  of  1816  and  the  late  spring  of  1817,  which  produced 
a  scarcity  of  food  that  amounted  in  parts  of  the  interior  to 
a  veritable  famine.  All  through  this  period  sounded  the 
ax  of  the  pioneer  clearing  the  forest  about  his  log-cabin,  and 
the  rumble  of  the  canvas-covered  emigrant-wagon  over  the 
primitive  highways  which  crossed  the  Alleghanies  or  followed 
the  valley  of  the  Mohawk.  S.  G.  Goodrich,  known  in  letters 
as  "Peter  Parley,"  in  his  Recollections  of  a  Life-time,  1856, 
describes  the  part  of  the  movement  which  he  had  witnessed 
as  a  boy  in  Fairfield  County,  Connecticut:  "  I  remember 
very  well  the  tide  of  emigration  through  Connecticut,  on  its 
way  to  the  West,  during  the  summer  of  1817.  Some  per 
sons  went  in  covered  wagons — frequently  a  family  consisting 
of  father,  mother,  and  nine  small  children,  with  one  at  the 
breast — some  on  foot,  and  some  crowded  together  under  the 
cover,  with  kettles,  gridirons,  feather-beds,  crockery,  and  the 
family  Bible,  Watts's  Psalms  and  Hymns,  and  Webster's 
Spelling-book — the  lares  and  penates  of  the  household. 
Others  started  in  ox-carts,  and  trudged  on  at  the  rate  of  ten 
miles  a  day.  .  .  .  Many  of  these  persons  were  in  a  state  of 
poverty,  and  begged  their  way  as  they  went.  Some  died 
before  they  reached  the  expected  Canaan;  many  perished 
after  their  arrival  from  fatigue  and  privation;  and  others 


70  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

from  the  fever  and  ague,  which  was  then  certain  to  attack 
the  new  settlers.  It  was,  I  think,  in  1818  that  I  published  a 
small  tract  entitled,  'Tother  Side  of  Ohio — that  is,  the  other 
view,  in  contrast  to  the  popular  notion  that  it  was  the  para 
dise  of  the  world.  It  was  written  by  Dr.  Hand — a  talented 
young  physician  of  Berlin — who  had  made  a  visit  to  the 
West  about  these  days.  It  consisted  mainly  of  vivid  but 
painful  pictures  of  the  accidents  and  incidents  attending  this 
wholesale  migration.  The  roads  over  the  Alleghanies,  be 
tween  Philadelphia  and  Pittsburg,  were  then  rude,  steep, 
and  dangerous,  and  some  of  the  more  precipitous  slopes  were 
consequently  strewn  with  the  carcasses  of  wagons,  carts, 
horses,  oxen,  which  had  made  shipwreck  in  their  perilous 
descents." 

But  in  spite  of  the  hardships  of  the  settler's  life  the  spirit 
of  that  time,  as  reflected  in  its  writings,  was  a  hopeful  and  a 
light-hearted  one. 

"  Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way," 

runs  the  famous  line  from  Berkeley's  poem  on  America. 
The  New  Englanders  who  removed  to  the  Western  Reserve 
went  there  to  better  themselves ;  and  their  children  found 
themselves  the  owners  of  broad  acres  of  virgin  soil  in  place 
of  the  stony  hill  pastures  of  Berkshire  and  Litchfield.  There 
was  an  attraction,  too,  about  the  wild,  free  life  of  the  front 
iersman,  with  all  its  perils  and  discomforts.  The  life  of 
Daniel  Boone,  the  pioneer  of  Kentucky — that  "  dark  and 
bloody  ground  " — is  a  genuine  romance.  Hardly  less  pictur 
esque  was  the  old  river  life  of  the  Ohio  boatmen,  before  the 
coming  of  steam  banished  their  queer  craft  from  the  water. 
Between  1810  and  1840  the  center  of  population  in  the 
United  States  had  moved  from  the  Potomac  to  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Clarksburg,  in  West  Virginia,  and  the  population 
itself  had  increased  from  seven  to  seventeen  millions.  The 
gain  was  made  partly  in  the  East  and  South,  but  the  general 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION.  71 

drift  was  westward.  During  the  years  now  under  review 
the  following  new  States  were  admitted,  in  the  order  named: 
Indiana,  Mississippi,  Illinois,  Alabama,  Maine,  Missouri,  Ar 
kansas,  Michigan.  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  had  been  made 
States  in  the  last  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  Lou 
isiana — acquired  by  purchase  from  France — in  1812. 

The  settlers,  in  their  westward  march,  left  large  tracts  of 
wilderness  behind  them.  They  took  up  first  the  rich  bottom 
lands  along  the  river  courses,  the  Ohio  and  Miami  and  Lick 
ing,  and  later  the  valleys  of  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri  and 
the  shores  of  the  great  lakes.  But  there  still  remained  back 
woods  in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  though  the  cities  of 
New  York  and  Philadelphia  had  each  a  population  of  more 
than  one  hundred  thousand  in  1815.  When  the  Erie  Canal 
was  opened,  in  1825,  it  ran  through  a  primitive  forest.  N.  P. 
Willis,  who  went  by  canal  to  Buffalo  and  Niagara  in  1827, 
describes  the  houses  and  stores  at  Rochester  as  standing 
among  the  burnt  stumps  left  by  the  first  settlers.  In  the 
same  year  that  saw  the  opening  of  this  great  water-way,  the 
Indian  tribes,  numbering  now  about  one  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  souls,  were  moved  across  the  Mississippi.  Their 
power  had  been  broken  by  General  Harrison's  victory  over 
Tecumseh  at  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe,  in  1811,  and  they 
were  in  fact  mere  remnants  and  fragments  of  the  race  which 
had  hung  upon  the  skirts  of  civilization  and  disputed  the 
advance  of  the  white  man  for  two  centuries.  It  was  not 
until  some  years  later  than  this  that  railroads  began  to  take 
an  important  share  in  opening  up  new  country. 

The  restless  energy,  the  love  of  adventure,  the  sanguine 
anticipation  which  characterized  American  thought  at  this 
time,  the  picturesque  contrasts  to  be  seen  in  each  mushroom 
town  where  civilization  was  encroaching  on  the  raw  edge  of 
the  wilderness — all  these  found  expression,  not  only  in  such 
well-known  books  as  Cooper's  Pioneers,  1823,  and  Irving's 
Tour  on  the  Prairies,  1835,  but  in  the  minor  literature  which 


72  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

is  read  to-day,  if  at  all,  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the 
light  that  it  throws  on  the  history  of  national  development: 
in  such  books  as  Paulding's  story  of  Westward  Ho  !  and  his 
poem,  The  Backwoodsman,  1818;  or  as  Timothy  Flint's 
Recollections,  1826,  and  his  Geography  and  History  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  1827.  It  was  not  an  age  of  great  books, 
but  it  was  an  age  of  large  ideas  and  expanding  prospects. 
The  new  consciousness  of  empire  uttered  itself  hastily, 
crudely,  ran  into  buncombe,  "  spread-eagleism,"  and  other 
noisy  forms  of  patriotic  exultation;  but  it  was  thoroughly 
democratic  and  American.  Though  literature — or  at  least 
the  best  literature  of  the  time — was  not  yet  emancipated 
from  English  models,  thought  and  life,  at  any  rate,  were  no 
longer  in  bondage — no  longer  provincial.  And  it  is  signifi 
cant  that  the  party  in  office  during  these  years  was  the  Demo 
cratic,  the  party  which  had  broken  most  completely  with 
conservative  traditions.  The  famous  "Monroe  doctrine" 
was  a  pronunciamento  of  this  aggressive  democracy,  and 
though  the  Federalists  returned  to  power  for  a  single  term, 
under  John  Quincy  Adams  (1825-29),  Andrew  Jackson 
received  the  largest  number  of  electoral  votes,  and  Adams 
was  only  chosen  by  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  ab 
sence  of  a  majority  vote  for  any  one  candidate.  At  the  close 
of  his  term  "  Old  Hickory,"  the  hero  of  the  people,  the  most 
characteristically  democratic  of  our  presidents,  and  the  first 
backwoodsman  who  entered  the  White  House,  was  borne 
into  office  on  a  wave  of  popular  enthusiasm.  We  have  now 
arrived  at  the  time  when  American  literature,  in  the  higher 
and  stricter  sense  of  the  term,  really  began  to  have  an  exist 
ence.  S.  G.  Goodrich,  who  settled  at  Hartford  as  a  book 
seller  and  publisher  in  1 81 8,  says,  in  his  Recollections :  "  About 
this  time  I  began  to  think  of  trying  to  bring  out  original 
American  works.  .  .  .  The  general  impression  was  that  we 
had  not,  and  could  not  have,  a  literature.  It  was  the  precise 
point  at  which  Sidney  Smith  had  uttered  that  bitter  taunt 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION.  73 

in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  c  Who  reads  an  American  book  ? ' 
...  It  was  positively  injurious  to  the  commercial  credit  of 
a  book-seller  to  undertake  American  works."  Washington 
Irving  (1783-1859)  was  the  first  American  author  whose 
books,  as  books,  obtained  recognition  abroad;  whose  name 
was  thought  worthy  of  mention  beside  the  names  of  English 
contemporary  authors,  like  Byron,  Scott,  and  Coleridge. 
He  was  also  the  first  American  writer  whose  writings  are 
still  read  for  their  own  sake.  We  read  Mather's  Magnolia, 
and  Franklin's  Autobiography,  and  T rumbull's  McFinyal— 
if  we  read  them  at  all— as  history,  and  to  learn  about  the 
times  or  the  men.  But  we  read  the  Sketch  Book,  and 
Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York,  and  the  Conquest  of 
Granada  for  themselves  and  for  the  pleasure  that  they  give 
as  pieces  of  literary  art. 

We  have  arrived,  too,  at  a  time  when  we  may  apply  a  more 
cosmopolitan  standard  to  the  works  of  American  writers,  and 
may  disregard  many  a  minor  author  whose  productions  would 
have  cut  some  figure  had  they  come  to  light  amid  the  pov 
erty  of  our  colonial  age.  Hundreds  of  these  forgotten  names, 
with  specimens  of  their  unread  writings,  are  consigned  to  a 
limbo  of  immortality  in  the  pages  of  Duyckinck's  Cyclopedia 
and  of  Griswold's  Poets  of  America  and  Prose  Writers  of 
America.  We  may  select  here  for  special  mention,  and  as 
most  representative  of  the  thought  of  their  time,  the  names  of 
Irving,  Cooper,  Webster,  and  Channing. 

A  generation  was  now  coming  upon  the  stage  who  could 
recall  no  other  government  in  this  country  than  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  and  to  whom  the  Revolutionary 
War  was  but  a  tradition.  Born  in  the  very  year  of  the  peace, 
it  was  a  part  of  Irving's  mission,  by  the  sympathetic  charm 
of  his  writings  and  by  the  cordial  recognition  which  he  won 
in  both  countries,  to  allay  the  soreness  which  the  second  war, 
of  1812-15,  had  left  between  England  and  America.  He 
was  well  fitted  for  the  task  of  mediator.  Conservative  by 


74  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

nature,  early  drawn  to  the  venerable  worship  of  the  Episcopal 
Church,  retrospective  in  his  tastes,  with  a  preference  for  the 
past  and  its  historic  associations,  which,  even  in  young  Amer 
ica,  led  him  to  invest  the  Hudson  and  the  region  about  "New 
York  with  a  legendary  interest,  he  wrote  of  American  themes 
in  an  English  fashion,  and  interpreted  to  an  American  pub 
lic  the  mellow  attractiveness  that  he  found  in  the  life  and 
scenery  of  Old  England.  He  lived  in  both  countries,  and 
loved  them  both;  and  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  Irving  is 
more  of  an  English  or  of  an  American  writer.  His  first  visit 
to  Europe,  in  1804-6,  occupied  nearly  two  years.  From 
1815  to  1832  he  was  abroad  continuously,  and  his  "domi 
cile,"  as  the  lawyers  say,  during  these  seventeen  years  was 
really  in  England,  though  a  portion  of  his  time  was  spent 
upon  the  Continent,  and  several  successive  years  in  Spain, 
where  he  engaged  upon  the  Life  of  Columbus,  the  Conquest 
of  Granada,  the  Companions  of  Columbus,  and  the  Alham- 
bra,  all  published  between  1828  and  1832.  From  1842  to 
1846  he  was  again  in  Spain  as  American  minister  at 
Madrid. 

Irving  was  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  Addisonians.  His 
boyish  letters,  signed  "  Jonathan  Oldstyle,"  contributed  in 
1802  to  his  brother's  newspaper,  the  Morning  Chronicle^ 
were,  like  Franklin's  Busybody,  close  imitations  of  the  Spec 
tator.  To  the  same  family  belonged  Ms  Salmagundi  papers, 
1807,  a  series  of  town-satires  on  New  York  society,  written 
in  conjunction  with  his  -brother  William  and  with  James  K. 
Paulding.  The  little  tales,  essays,  and  sketches  which  com 
pose  the  Sketch  Book  were  written  in  England,  and  pub 
lished  in  America,  in  periodical  numbers,  in  1819-20.  In 
this,  which  is  in  some  respects  his  best  book,  he  still  main 
tained  that  attitude  of  observation  and  spectatorship  taught 
him  by  Addison.  The  volume  had  a  motto  taken  from  Bur 
ton:  "I  have  no  wife  nor  children,  good  or  bad,  to  provide 
for — a  mere  spectator  of  other  men's  fortunes,"  etc. ;  and 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION.  75 

"  The  Author's  Account  of  Himself,"  began  in  true  Addi- 
sonian  fashion :  "  I  was  always  fond  of  visiting  new  scenes 
and  observing  strange  characters  and  manners." 

But  though  never  violently  "  American,"  like  some  later 
writers  who  have  consciously  sought  to  throw  off  the  tram 
mels  of  English  tradition,  Irving  was  in  a  real  way  original. 
His  most  distinct  addition  to  our  national  literature  was  in 
his  creation  of  what  has  been  called  "  the  Knickerbocker 
legend."  He  was  the  first  to  make  use,  for  literary  pur 
poses,  of  the  old  Dutch  traditions  which  clustered  about  the 
romantic  scenery  of  the  Hudson.  Colonel  T.  W.  Higginson, 
in  his  History  of  the  United  States,  tells  how  "  Mrs.  Josiah 
Quincy,  sailing  up  that  river  in  1786,  when  Irving  was  a 
child  three  years  old,  records  that  the  captain  of  the  sloop 
had  a  legend,  either  supernatural  or  traditional,  for  every 
scene,  *  and  not  a  mountain  reared  its  head  unconnected 
with  some  marvelous  story.' "  The  material  thus  at  hand 
Irving  shaped  into  his  Kn  ickerbocker^  s  History  of  N~ew  York, 
into  the  immortal  story  of  Rip  Van  Winkle  and  the  Legend 
of  Sleepy  Hollow  (both  published  in  the  Sketch  Book),  and 
into  later  additions  to  the  same  realm  of  fiction,  such  as  Dolph 
Ileyliger  in  Bracebridye  Hall,  the  Money  Diggers,  Wolfert 
Webber,  and  Kidd  the  Pirate,  in  the  Tales  of  a  Traveler,  and 
some  of  the  miscellanies  from  the  Knickerbocker  Magazine, 
collected  into  a  volume,  in  1855,  under  the  title  of  Wolfertfs 
Roost. 

The  book  which  made  Irving's  reputation  was  his  Knick 
erbocker's  History  of  New  York,  1809,  a  burlesque  chroni 
cle,  making  fun  of  the  old  Dutch  settlers  of  New  Amster 
dam,  and  attributed,  by  a  familiar  and  now  somewhat  thread 
bare  device,1  to  a  little  old  gentleman  named  Diedrich 
Knickerbocker,  whose  manuscript  had  come  into  the  editor's 
hands.  The  book  was  gravely  dedicated  to  the  New  York 

1  Compare  Carlyle's  Herr  Diogenes  Teufelsdrockh,  in  Sartor  Resartus,  the 
author  of  the  famous  "  Clothes  Philosophy." 


76  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Historical  Society,  and  it  is  said  to  have  been  quoted,  as 
authentic  history,  by  a  certain  German  scholar  named  Goel- 
ler,  in  a  note  on  a  passage  in  Thucydides.  This  story,  though 
well  vouched,  is  hard  of  belief;  for  Knickerbocker,  though 
excellent  fooling,  has  nothing  of  the  grave  irony  of  Swift  in 
his  Modest  Proposal  or  of  Defoe  in  his  Short  Way  with  Dis 
senters.  Its  mock-heroic  intention  is  as  transparent  as  in 
Fielding's  parodies  of  Homer,  which  it  somewhat  resembles, 
particularly  in  the  delightfully  absurd  description  of  the 
mustering  of  the  clans  under  Peter  Stuyvesant  and  the  at 
tack  on  the  Swedish  Fort  Christina.  Knickerbocker's  History 
of  New  York  was  a  real  addition  to  the  comic  literature  of 
the  world,  a  work  of  genuine  humor,  original  and  vital. 
Walter  Scott  said  that  it  reminded  him  closely  of  Swift,  and 
had  touches  resembling  Sterne.  It  is  not  necessary  to  claim 
for  Irving's  little  masterpiece  a  place  beside  Gulliver's 
Travels  and  Tristram  Shandy.  But  it  was,  at  least,  the  first 
American  book  in  the  lighter  departments  of  literature  which 
needed  no  apology  and  stood  squarely  on  its  own  legs.  It 
was  written,  too,  at  just  the  right  time.  Although  New 
Amsterdam  had  become  New  York  as  early  as  1664,  the  im 
press  of  its  first  settlers,  with  their  quaint  conservative  ways, 
was  still  upon  it  when  Irving  was  a  boy.  The  descendants 
of  the  Dutch  families  formed  a  definite  element  not  only  in 
Manhattan,  but  all  up  along  the  kills  of  the  Hudson,  at  Al 
bany,  at  Schenectady,  in  Westchester  County,  at  Hoboken, 
and  Communipaw,  localities  made  familiar  to  him  in  many  a 
ramble  and  excursion.  He  lived  to  see  the  little  provincial 
town  of  his  birth  grow  into  a  great  metropolis,  in  which  all 
national  characteristics  were  blended  together,  and  a  tide  of 
immigration  from  Europe  and  New  England  flowed  over  the 
old  landmarks  and  obliterated  them  utterly. 

Although  Irving  was  the  first  to  reveal  to  his  countrymen 
the  literary  possibilities  of  their  early  history  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that  with  modern  American  life  he  had  little 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION.  77 

sympathy.  He  hated  politics,  and  in  the  restless  democratic 
movement  of  the  time,  as  we  have  described  it,  he  found  no 
inspiration.  This  moderate  and  placid  gentleman,  with  his 
distrust  of  all  kinds  of  fanaticism,  had  no  liking  for  the  Puri 
tans  or  for  their  descendants,  the  New  England  Yankees,  if 
we  may  judge  from  his  sketch  of  Ichabod  Crane  in  the 
Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow.  His  genius  was  reminiscent,  and 
his  imagination,  like  Scott's,  was  the  historic  imagination. 
In  crude  America  his  fancy  took  refuge  in  the  picturesque 
aspects  of  the  past,  in  "  survivals "  like  the  Knickerbocker 
Dutch  and  the  Acadian  peasants,  whose  isolated  communi 
ties  on  the  lower  Mississippi  he  visited  and  described.  He 
turned  naturally  to  the  ripe  civilization  of  the  Old  World. 
He  was  our  first  picturesque  tourist,  the  first  "  American  in 
Europe."  He  rediscovered  England,  whose  ancient  churches, 
quiet  landscapes,  memory-haunted  cities,  Christmas  celebra 
tions,  and  rural  festivals  had  for  him  an  unfailing  attraction. 
With  pictures  of  these,  for  the  most  part,  he  filled  the  pages 
of  the  Sketch  Book  and  Bracebridge  Hall,  1822.  Delightful 
as  are  these  English  sketches,  in  which  the  author  conducts 
his  reader  to  Windsor  Castle,  or  Stratford-on-Avon,  or  the 
Boar's  Head  Tavern,  or  sits  beside  him  on  the  box  of  the  old 
English  stage-coach,  or  shares  with  him  the  Yule-tide  cheer 
at  the  ancient  English  country-house,  their  interest  has  some 
what  faded.  The  pathos  of  the  Broken  Heart  and  the  Pride 
of  the  Village,  the  mild  satire  of  the  Art  of  Book-Making, 
the  rather  obvious  reflections  in  Westminster  Abbey  are  not 
exactly  to  the  taste  of  this  generation.  They  are  the  litera 
ture  of  leisure  and  retrospection;  and  already  Irving's  gentle 
elaboration,  the  refined  and  slightly  artificial  beauty  of  his 
style,  and  his  persistently  genial  and  sympathetic  attitude 
have  begun  to  pall  upon  readers  who  demand  a  more  nervous 
and  accentuated  kind  of  writing.  It  is  felt  that  a  little 
roughness,  a  little  harshness,  even,  would  give  relief  to  his 
pictures  of  life.  There  is,  for  instance,  something  a  little 


78  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

irritating  in  the  old-fashioned  courtliness  of  his  manner 
toward  women;  and  one  reads  with  a  certain  impatience 
smoothly  punctuated  passages  like  the  following:  "As  the 
vine,  which  has  long  twined  its  graceful  foliage  about  the  oak, 
and  been  lifted  by  it  into  sunshine,  will,  when  the  hardy 
plant  is  rifted  by  the  thunder-bolt,  cling  round  it  with  its 
caressing  tendrils,  and  bind  up  its  shattered  boughs,  so  is  it 
beautifully  ordered  by  Providence  that  woman,  who  is  the 
mere  dependent  and  ornament  of  man  in  his  happier  hours, 
should  be  his  stay  and  solace  when  smitten  with  sudden 
calamity,  winding  herself  into  the  rugged  recesses  of  his 
nature,  tenderly  supporting  the  drooping  head  and  binding 
up  the  broken  heart." 

Irving's  gifts  were  sentiment  and  humor,  with  an  imagina 
tion  sufficiently  fertile  and  an  observation  sufficiently  acute 
to  support  those  two  main  qualities,  but  inadequate  to  the 
service  of  strong  passion  or  subtle  thinking,  though  his 
pathos,  indeed,  sometimes  reached  intensity.  His  humor 
was  always  delicate  and  kindly;  his  sentiment  never  degen 
erated  into  sentimentality.  His  diction  was  graceful  and 
elegant — too  elegant,  perhaps ;  and,  in  his  modesty,  he  attrib 
uted  the  success  of  his  books  in  England  to  the  astonish 
ment  of  Englishmen  that  an  American  could  write  good 
English. 

In  Spanish  history  and  legend  Irving  found  a  still  newer 
and  richer  field  for  his  fancy  to  work  upon.  He  had  not  the 
analytic  and  philosophical  mind  of  a  great  historian,  and  the 
merits  of  his  Conquest  of  Granada  and  Life  of  Columbus 
are  rather  belletristisch  than  scientific.  But  he  brought  to 
these  undertakings  the  same  eager  love  of  the  romantic  past 
which  had  determined  the  character  of  his  writings  in  Amer 
ica  and  England,  and  the  result — whether  we  call  it  history 
or  romance — is  at  all  events  charming  as  literature.  His 
Life  of  Washington — completed  in  1859 — was  his  magnum 
opus,  and  is  accepted  as  standard  authority.  Mahomet  and 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL   EXPANSION.  79 

His  Successors,  1850,  was  comparatively  a  failure.  But  of 
all  Irving's  biographies  his  Life  of  Oliver  Goldsmith,  1849, 
was  the  most  spontaneous  and  perhaps  the  best.  He  did 
not  impose  it  upon  himself  as  a  task,  but  wrote  it  from  a 
native  and  loving  sympathy  with  his  subject,  and  it  is, 
therefore,  one  of  the  choicest  literary  memoirs  in  the  lan 
guage. 

When  Irving  returned  to  America,  in  1832,  he  was  the  re 
cipient  of  almost  national  honors.  He  had  received  the 
medal  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature  and  the  degree  of 
D.C.L.  from  Oxford  University,  and  had  made  American 
literature  known  -and  respected  abroad.  In  his  modest  home 
at  Sunnyside,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  over  which  he  had 
been  the  first  to  throw  the  witchery  of  poetry  and  romance, 
he  was  attended  to  the  last  by  the  admiring  affection  of  his 
countrymen.  He  had  the  love  and  praises  of  the  foremost 
English  writers  of  his  own  generation  and  the  generation 
which  followed — of  Scott,  Byron,  Coleridge,  Thackeray,  and 
Dickens,  some  of  whom  had  been  among  his  personal  friends. 
lie  is  not  the  greatest  of  American  authors,  but  the  influence 
of  his  writings  is  sweet  and  wholesome,  and  it  is  in  many 
ways  fortunate  that  the  first  American  man  of  letters  who 
made  himself  heard  in  Europe  should  have  been  in  all  par 
ticulars  a  gentleman. 

Connected  with  Irving,  at  least  by  name  and  locality,  were 
a  number  of  authors  who  resided  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
and  who  are  known  as  the  Knickerbocker  writers,  perhaps 
because  they  were  contributors  to  the  Knickerbocker  Maga 
zine.  One  of  these  was  James  K.  Paulding,  a  connection  of 
Irving  by  marriage,  and  his  partner  in  the  Salmagundi 
papers.  Paulding  became  Secretary  of  the  Navy  under 
Van  Buren,  and  lived  down  to  the  year  1860.  He  was  a 
voluminous  author,  but  his  writings  had  no  power  of  contin 
uance,  and  are  already  obsolete,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  his  novel,  the  Dutchman's  Fireside,  1831. 


80  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

A  finer  spirit  than  Paulding  was  Joseph  Rodman  Drake, 
a  young  poet  of  great  promise,  who  died  in  1820,  at  the  age 
of  twenty-five.  Drake's  patriotic  lyric,  the  American  Flag, 
is  certainly  the  most  spirited  thing  of  the  kind  in  our  poetic 
literature,  and  greatly  superior  to  such  national  anthems  as 
Hail  Columbia  and  the  Star- Spangled  Banner.  His  Culprit 
Fay,  published  in  1819,  was  the  best  poem  that  had  yet 
appeared  in  America,  if  we  except  Bryant's  Thanatopsis, 
which  was  three  years  the  elder.  The  Culprit  Fay  was  a 
fairy  story,  in  which,  following  Irving's  lead,  Drake  under 
took  to  throw  the  glamour  of  poetry  about  the  Highlands  of 
the  Hudson.  Edgar  Poe  said  that  the  poem  was  fancifnl 
rather  than  imaginative;  but  it  is  prettily  and  even  brilliantly 
fanciful,  and  has  maintained  its  popularity  to  the  present 
time.  Such  verse  as  the  following — which  seems  to  show 
that  Drake  had  been  reading  Coleridge's  Christabel,  pub 
lished  three  years  before — was  something  new  in  American 
poetry : 

"  The  winds  are  whist  and  the  owl  is  still, 

The  bat  in  the  shelvy  rock  is  hid, 
And  naught  is  heard  on  the  lonely  hill 
But  the  cricket's  chirp  and  the  answer  shrill 

Of  the  gauze-winged  katydid, 
And  the  plaint  of  the  wailing  whip-poor-will, 

Who  moans  unseen,  and  ceaseless  sings 
Ever  a  note  of  wail  and  woe, 

Till  morning  spreads  her  rosy  wings, 
And  earth  and  sky  in  her  glances  glow." 

Here  we  have,  at  last,  the  whip-poor-will,  an  American 
bird,  and  not  the  conventional  lark  or  nightingale,  although 
the  elves  of  the  Old  World  seem  scarcely  at  home  on  the 
banks  of  the  Hudson.  Drake's  memory  has  been  kept  fresh 
not  only  by  his  own  poetry,  but  by  the  beautiful  elegy  writ 
ten  by  his  friend  Fitz-Greene  Halleck,  the  first  stanza  of 
which  is  universally  known: 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION.  81 

"  Green  be  the  turf  above  thee, 

Friend  of  my  better  days ; 
None  knew  thee  but  to  love  thee, 

Nor  named  thee  but  to  praise." 

Halleck  was  born  in  Guilford,  Connecticut,  whither  he  re 
tired  in  1849,  and  resided  there  till  his  death  in  1867.  But 
his  literary  career  is  identified  with  New  York.  He  was 
associated  with  Drake  in  writing  the  Croaker  Papers,  a 
series  of  humorous  and  satirical  verses  contributed  in  1814 
to  the  Evening  Post.  These  were  of  a  merely  local  and 
temporary  interest;  but  Halleck's  fine  ode,  Marco  jBozzaris 
—though  declaimed  until  it  has  become  hackneyed — gives 
him  a  sure  title  to  remembrance;  and  his  Alnwick  Castle,  a 
monody,  half  serious  and  half  playful  on  the  contrast  be 
tween  feudal  associations  and  modern  life,  has  much  of  that 
pensive  lightness  which  characterizes  Praed's  best  vers  de 
soeiete. 

A  friend  of  Drake  and  Halleck  was  James  Fenimore 
Cooper  (1789-1851),  the  first  American  novelist  of  distinc 
tion,  and,  if  a  popularity  which  has  endured  for  nearly 
three  quarters  of  a  century  is  any  test,  still  the  most  success 
ful  of  all  American  novelists.  Cooper  was  far  more  in 
tensely  American  than  Irving,  and  his  books  reached  an  even 
wider  public.  "  They  are  published  as  soon  as  he  produces 
them,"  said  Morse,  the  electrician,  in  1833,  "in  thirty-four 
different  places  in  Europe.  They  have  been  seen  by  Ameri 
can  travelers  in  the  languages  of  Turkey  and  Persia,  in  Con 
stantinople,  in  Egypt,  at  Jerusalem,  at  Ispahan."  Cooper 
wrote  altogether  too  much;  he  published,  besides  his  fictions, 
a  Naval  History  of  the  United  States,  a  series  of  naval  biog 
raphies,  works  of  travel,  and  a  great  deal  of  controversial 
matter.  He  wrote  over  thirty  novels,  the  greater  part  of 
which  are  little  better  than  trash,  and  tedious  trash  at  that. 
This  is  especially  true  of  his  tendenz  novels  and  his  novels  of 
society.  He  was  a  man  of  strongly  marked  individuality, 


82  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

fiery,  pugnacious,  sensitive  to  criticism,  and  abounding  in 
prejudices.  He  was  embittered  by  the  scurrilous  attacks 
made  upon  him  by  a  portion  of  the  American  press,  and 
spent  a  great  deal  of  time  and  energy  in  conducting  libel 
suits  against  the  newspapers.  In  the  same  spirit  he  used 
fiction  as  a  vehicle  for  attack  upon  the  abuses  and  follies  of 
American  life.  Nearly  all  of  his  novels,  written  with  this 
design,  are  worthless.  Nor  was  Cooper  well  equipped  by 
nature  and  temperament  for  depicting  character  and  pas 
sion  in  social  life.  Even  in  his  best  romances  his  hero 
ines  and  his  "  leading  juveniles  " — to  borrow  a  term  from 
the  amateur  stage — are  insipid  and  conventional.  He  was 
no  satirist,  and  his  humor  was  not  of  a  high  order.  He 
was  a  rapid  and  uneven  writer,  and,  unlike  Irving,  he  had 
no  style. 

Where  Cooper  was  great  was  in  the  story,  in  the  invention 
of  incidents  and  plots,  in  a  power  of  narrative  and  description 
in  tales  of  wild  adventure  which  keeps  the  reader  in  breath 
less  excitement  to  the  end  of  the  book.  He  originated  the 
novel  of  the  sea  and  the  novel  of  the  wilderness.  He 
created  the  Indian  of  literature;  and  in  this,  his  peculiar  field, 
although  he  has  had  countless  imitators,  he  has  had  no  equals. 
Cooper's  experiences  had  prepared  him  well  for  the  kingship 
of  this  new  realm  in  the  world  of  fiction.  His  childhood  was 
passed  on  the  borders  of  Otsego  Lake,  when  central  New 
York  was  still  a  wilderness,  with  boundless  forests  stretch 
ing  westward,  broken  only  here  and  there  by  the  clearings 
of  the  pioneers.  He  was  taken  from  college  (Yale)  when 
still  a  lad,  and  sent  to  sea  in  a  merchant  vessel,  before  the 
mast.  Afterward  he  entered  the  navy  and  did  duty  on  the 
high  seas  and  upon  Lake  Ontario,  then  surrounded  by  virgin 
forests.  He  married  and  resigned  his  commission  in  1811, 
just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war  with  England,  so  that  he 
missed  the  opportunity  of  seeing  active  service  in  any  of 
those  engagements  on  the  ocean  and  our  great  lakes  which 


THE  EKA  OF  NATIONAL   EXPANSION.  83 

were  so  glorious  to  American  arms.     But  he  always  retained 
iin  active  interest  in  naval  affairs. 

His  first  successful  novel  was  The  Spy,  1821,  a  tale  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  the  scene  of  which  was  laid  in  West- 
chester  County,  N.  Y.,  where  the  author  was  then  residing. 
The  hero  of  this  story,  Harvey  Birch,  was  one  of  the  most 
skillfully  drawn  figures  on  his  canvas.  In  1823  he  published 
the  Pioneers,  a  work  somewhat  overladen  with  description, 
in  which  he  drew  for  material  upon  his  boyish  recollections 
of  frontier  life  at  Cooperstown.  This  was  the  first  of  the 
series  of  five  romances  known  as  the  Leather  stocking  Tales. 
The  others  were  the  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  1826;  the  Prairie, 
1827;  the  Pathfinder,  1840;  and  the  Deerslayer,  1841.  The 
hero  of  this  series,  Natty  Bumpo,  or  "  Leatherstocking,"  was 
Cooper's  one  great  creation  in  the  sphere  of  character,  his 
most  original  addition  to  the  literature  of  the  world  in  the 
way  of  a  new  human  type.  This  backwoods  philosopher — 
to  the  conception  of  whom  the  historic  exploits  of  Daniel 
Boone  perhaps  supplied  some  hints;  unschooled,  but  moved 
by  noble  impulses  and  a  natural  sense  of  piety  and  justice; 
passionately  attached  to  the  wilderness,  and  following  its 
westering  edge  even  unto  the  prairies — this  man  of  the 
woods  was  the  first  real  American  in  fiction.  Hardly  less 
individual  and  vital  were  the  various  types  of  Indian  charac 
ter,  in  Chingachgook,  Uncas,  Hist,  and  the  Huron  warriors. 
Inferior  to  these,  but  still  vigorously  though  somewhat 
roughly  drawn,  were  the  waifs  and  strays  of  civilization, 
whom  duty,  or  the  hope  of  gain,  or  the  love  of  adventure,  or 
the  outlawry  of  crime  had  driven  to  the  wilderness — the  sol 
itary  trapper,  the  reckless  young  frontiersman,  the  officers  and 
men  of  out-post  garrisons.  Whether  Cooper's  Indian  was  the 
real  being,  or  an  idealized  and  rather  melodramatic  version  of 
the  truth,  has  been  a  subject  of  dispute.  However  this  be,  he 
has  taken  his  place  in  the  domain  of  art,  and  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  his  standing  there  is  secure.  No  boy  will  ever  give  him  up. 


84  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Equally  good  with  the  Leather  stocking  novels,  and  equally 
national,  were  Cooper's  tales  of  the  sea,  or  at  least  the  best 
two  of  them — the  Pilot,  1823,  founded  upon  the  daring  ex 
ploits  of  John  Paul  Jones,  and  the  JKed  Hover,  1828.  But 
here,  though  Cooper  still  holds  the  sea,  he  has  had  to  admit 
competitors;  and  Britannia,  who  rules  the  waves  in  song,  has 
put  in  some  claim  to  a  share  in  the  domain  of  nautical  fiction 
in  the  persons  of  Mr.  W.  Clark  Russell  and  others.  Though 
Cooper's  novels  do  not  meet  the  deeper  needs  of  the  heart  and 
the  imagination,  their  appeal  to  the  universal  love  of  a  story 
is  perennial.  We  devour  them  when  we  are  boys,  and  if  we 
do  not  often  return  to  them  when  we  are  men,  that  is  per 
haps  only  because  we  have  read  them  before,  and  "know  the 
ending."  They  are  good  yarns  for  the  forecastle  and  the 
camp-fire;  and  the  scholar  in  his  study,  though  he  may  put 
the  Deerslayer  or  the  Last  of  the  Mohicans  away  on  the 
top  shelf,  will  take  it  down  now  and  again,  and  sit  up  half 
the  night  over  it. 

Before  dismissing  the  belles-lettres  writings  of  this  period, 
mention  should  be  made  of  a  few  poems  of  the  fugitive  kind 
which  seem  to  have  taken  a  permanent  place  in  popular  re 
gard.  John  Howard  Payne,  a  native  of  Long  Island,  a  wan^- 
dering  actor  and  playwright,  who  died  American  consul  at 
Tunis  in  1852,  wrote  about  1820  for  Covent  Garden  Theater 
an  opera,  entitled  Clari,  the  libretto  of  which  included  the 
now  famous  song  of  Home,  Sweet  Home.  Its  literary  pre 
tensions  were  of  the  humblest  kind,  but  it  spoke  a  true  word 
which  touched  the  Anglo-Saxon  heart  in  its  tenderest  spot, 
and,  being  happily  married  to  a  plaintive  air,  was  sold  by  the 
hundred  thousand,  and  is  evidently  destined  to  be  sung  for 
ever.  A  like  success  has  attended  the  Old  Oaken  Bucket, 
composed  by  Samuel  Woodworth,  a  printer  and  journalist 
from  Massachusetts,  whose  other  poems,  of  which  two  col 
lections  were  issued  in  1818  and  1826,  were  soon  forgotten. 
Richard  Henry  Wilde,  an  Irishman  by  birth,  a  gentleman  of 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION.  85 

scholarly  tastes  and  accomplishments,  who  wrote  a  great 
deal  on  Italian  literature,  and  sat  for  several  terms  in  Con 
gress  as  Representative  of  the  State  of  Georgia,  was  the  au 
thor  of  the  favorite  song,  My  Life  is  Like  the  Summer  Rose. 
Another  Southerner,  and  a  member  of  a  distinguished  South 
ern  family,  was  Edward  Coate  Pinkney,  who  served  nine 
years  in  the  navy,  and  died  in  1828,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six, 
having  published  in  1825  a  small  volume  of  lyrical  poems 
which  had  a  fire  and  a  grace  uncommon  at  that  time  in 
American  verse.  One  of  these,  A  Health,  beginning, 

"  I  fill  this  cup  to  one  made  up  of  loveliness  alone." 

though  perhaps  somewhat  overpraised  by  Edgar  Poe,  has 
rare  beauty  of  thought  and  expression. 

John  Quincy  &dams,  sixth  President  of  the  United  States 
(1825-29),  was  a  man  of  culture  and  literary  tastes.  He 
published  his  lectures  on  rhetoric,  delivered  during  his  tenure 
of  the  Boylston  Professorship  at  Harvard  in  1806-9;  he  left 
a  voluminous  diary,  which  has  been  edited  since  his  death 
in  1848  ;  and  among  his  experiments  in  poetry  is  one  of  con 
siderable  merit,  entitled  The  Wants  of  Man,  an  ironical  ser 
mon  on  Goldsmith's  text: 

"  Man  wants  but  little  here  below, 
Nor  wants  that  little  long." 

As  this  poem  is  a  curiously  close  anticipation  of  Dr. 
Holmes's  Contentment,  so  the  very  popular  ballad,  Old 
Grimes,  written  about  1818,  by  Albert  Gorton  Greene,  an 
undergraduate  of  Brown  University  in  Rhode  Island,  is  in 
some  respects  an  anticipation  of  Holmes's  quaintly  pathetic 
Last  Leaf. 

The  political  literature  and  public  oratory  of  the  United 
States  during  this  period,  although  not  absolutely  of  less  im 
portance  than  that  which  preceded  and  followed  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  and  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution, 


86  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

demands  less  relative  attention  in  a  history  of  literature  by 
reason  of  the  growth  of  other  departments  of  thought.  The 
age  was  a  political  one,  but  no  longer  exclusively  political. 
The  debates  of  the  time  centered  about  the  question  of 
"  State  Rights,"  and  the  main  forum  of  discussion  was  the 
old  Senate  chamber,  then  made  illustrious  by  the  presence  of 
Clay,  Webster,  and  Calhoun.  The  slavery  question,  which 
had  threatened  trouble,  was  put  off  for  a  while  by  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise  of  1820,  only  to  break  out  more  fiercely  in 
the  debates  on  the  Wilmot  Proviso  and  the  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  Bill.  Meanwhile  the  Abolition  movement  had 
been  transferred  to  the  press  and  the  platform.  Garrison 
started  his  Liberator  in  1830,  and  the  Antislavery  Society 
was  founded  in  1833.  The  Whig  party,  which  had  inherited 
the  constitutional  principles  of  the  old  Federal  party,  advo 
cated  internal  improvements  at  national  expense  and  a  high 
protective  tariff.  The  State  Rights  party,  which  was  strong 
est  at  the  South,  opposed  these  views,  and  in  1832  South 
Carolina  claimed  the  right  to  "  nullify  "  the  tariff  imposed 
by  the  general  government.  The  leader  of  this  party  was 
John  Caldwell  Calhoun,  a  South  Carolinian,  who  in  his  speech 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  on  February  13,  1832,  on  Nullifi 
cation  and  the  Force  Bill,  set  forth  most  authoritatively  the 
"  Carolina  doctrine."  Calhoun  was  a  great  debater,  but  hardly 
a  great  orator.  His  speeches  are  the  arguments  of  a  lawyer 
and  a  strict  constitutionalist,  severely  logical,  and  with  a 
sincere  conviction  in  the  soundness  of  his  case.  Their  lan 
guage  is  free  from  bad  rhetoric  ;  the  reasoning  is  cogent, 
but  there  is  an  absence  of  emotion  and  imagination;  they 
contain  few  quotable  things,  and  no  passages  of  commanding 
eloquence,  such  as  strew  the  orations  of  Webster  and  Burke. 
They  are  not,  in  short,  literature.  Again,  the  speeches  of 
Henry  Clay,  of  Kentucky,  the  leader  of  the  Whigs,  whose 
persuasive  oratory  is  a  matter  of  tradition,  disappoint  in  the 
reading.  The  fire  has  gone  out  of  them. 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION.  87 

Not  so  with  Daniel  Webster,  the  greatest  of  American 
forensic  orators,  if,  indeed,  he  be  not  the  greatest  of  all 
orators  who  have  used  the  English  tongue.  Webster's 
speeches  are  of  the  kind  that  have  power  to  move  after  the 
voice  of  the  speaker  is  still.  The  thought  and  the  passion 
in  them  lay  hold  on  feelings  of  patriotism  more  lasting  than 
the  issues  of  the  moment.  It  is,  indeed,  true  of  Webster's 
speeches,  as  of  all  speeches,  that  they  are  known  to  posterity 
more  by  single  brilliant  passages  than  as  wholes.  In  oratory 
the  occasion  is  of  the  essence  of  the  thing,  and  only  those 
parts  of  an  address  which  are  permanent  and  universal  in 
their  appeal  take  their  place  in  literature.  But  of  such  de 
tachable  passages  there  are  happily  many  in  Webster's  ora 
tions.  One  great  thought  underlay  all  his  public  life,  the 
thought  of  the  Union — of  American  nationality.  What  in 
Hamilton  had  been  a  principle  of  political  philosophy  had  be 
come  in  Webster  a  passionate  conviction.  The  Union  was 
his  idol,  and  he  was  intolerant  of  any  faction  which  threat 
ened  it  from  any  quarter,  whether  the  Nullifiers  of  South 
Carolina  or  the  Abolitionists  of  the  North.  It  is  this 
thought  which  gives  grandeur  and  elevation  to  all  his  utter 
ances,  and  especially  to  the  wonderful  peroration  of  his  Reply 
to  Hayne,  on  Mr.  Foot's  resolution  touching  the  sale  of  the 
public  lands,  delivered  in  the  Senate  on  January  26,  1830, 
whose  closing  words,  "  Liberty  and  union,  now  and  forever, 
one  and  inseparable,"  became  the  rallying  cry  of  a  great 
cause.  Similar  in  sentiment  was  his  famous  speech  of  March 
7,  1850,  On  the  Constitution  and  the  Union,  which  gave  so 
much  offense  to  the  extreme  Antislavery  party,  who  held 
with  Garrison  that  a  Constitution  which  protected  slavery 
was  "  a  league  with  death  and  a  covenant  with  hell."  It  is 
not  claiming  too  much  for  Webster  to  assert  that  the  sen 
tences  of  these  and  other  speeches,  memorized  and  declaimed 
by  thousands  of  school-boys  throughout  the  North,  did  as 
much  as  any  single  influence  to  train  up  a  generation  in  hatred 


88  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  secession,  and  to  send  into  the  fields  of  the  civil  war  armies 
of  men  animated  with  the  stern  resolution  to  fight  till  the 
last  drop  of  blood  was  shed,  rather  than  allow  the  Union  to 
be  dissolved. 

The  figure  of  this  great  senator  is  one  of  the  most  impos 
ing  in  American  annals.  The  masculine  force  of  his  person 
ality  impressed  itself  upon  men  of  a  very  different  stamp — 
upon  the  unworldly  Emerson,  and  upon  the  captious  Carlyle, 
whose  respect  was  not  willingly  accorded  to  any  contempo 
rary,  much  less  to  a  representative  of  American  democracy. 
Webster's  looks  and  manner  were  characteristic.  His  form 
was  massive,  his  skull  and  jaw  solid,  the  under-lip  projecting, 
and  the  mouth  firmly  and  grimly  shut;  his  complexion  was 
swarthy,  and  his  black,  deep-set  eyes,  under  shaggy  brows, 
glowed  with  a  smoldering  fire.  He  was  rather  silent  in  so 
ciety;  his  delivery  in  debate  was  grave  and  weighty,  rather 
than  fervid.  His  oratory  was  massive,  and  sometimes  even 
ponderous.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  an  American  or 
ator  of  to-day,  with  intellectual  abilities  equal  to  Webster's 
— if  such  a  one  there  were — would  permit  himself  the  use 
of  sonorous  and  elaborate  pictures  like  the  famous  period 
which  follows:  "On  this  question  of  principle,  while  actual 
suffering  was  yet  afar  off,  they  raised  their  flag  against  a 
power  to  which,  for  purposes  of  foreign  conquest  and  sub 
jugation,  Rome,  in  the  height  of  her  glory,  is  not  to  be 
compared — a  power  which  has  dotted  over  the  surface  of 
the  whole  globe  with  her  possessions  and  military  posts, 
whose  morning  drum-beat,  following  the  sun  and  keeping 
company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth  with  one  continu 
ous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  martial  airs  of  England." 
The  secret  of  this  kind  of  oratory  has  been  lost.  The 
present  generation  distrusts  rhetorical  ornament  and  likes 
something  swifter,  simpler,  and  more  familiar  in  its  speak 
ers.  But  every  thing,  in  declamation  of  this  sort,  de 
pends  on  the  way  in  which  it  is  done.  Webster  did  it 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL   EXPANSION.  89 

supremely  well;  a  smaller  man  would  merely  have  made 
buncombe  of  it. 

Among  the  legal  orators  of  the  time  the  foremost  was 
Rufus  Choate,  an  eloquent  pleader,  and,  like  Webster,  a 
United  States  senator  from  Massachusetts.  Some  of  his 
speeches,  though  excessively  rhetorical,  have  literary  quality, 
and  are  nearly  as  effective  in  print  as  Webster's  own.  An 
other  Massachusetts  orator,  Edward  Everett,  who  in  his 
time  was  successively  professor  in  Harvard  College,  Unita 
rian  minister  in  Boston,  editor  of  the  North  American  JReview, 
member  of  both  houses  of  Congress,  minister  to  England, 
governor  of  his  State,  and  President  of  Harvard,  was  a 
speaker  of  great  finish  and  elegance.  His  addresses  were 
mainly  of  the  memorial  and  anniversary  kind,  and  were 
rather  lectures  and  $.  B.  K.  prolusions  than  speeches.  Ev 
erett  was  an  instance  of  careful  culture  bestowed  on  a  soil  of 
no  very  great  natural  richness.  It  is  doubtful  whether  his 
classical  orations  on  Washington,  the  Republic,  Bunker 
Hill  Monument,  and  kindred  themes,  have  enough  of  the 
breath  of  life  in  them  to  preserve  them  much  longer  in  rec 
ollection. 

New  England,  during  these  years,  did  not  take  that 
leading  part  in  the  purely  literary  development  of  the 
country  which  it  afterward  assumed.  It  had  no  names  to 
match  against  those  of  Irving  and  Cooper.  Drake  and 
Halleck — slender  as  was  their  performance  in  point  of  quan 
tity — were  better  poets  than  the  Boston  bards,  Charles 
Sprague,  whose  Shakespeare  Ode,  delivered  at  the  Boston 
theater  in  1823,  was  locally  famous;  and  Richard  Henry 
Dana,  whose  longish  narrative  poem,  the  JBuccaneer,  1827, 
once  had  admirers.  But  Boston  has  at  no  time  been  with 
out  a  serious  intellectual  life  of  its  own,  nor  without  a 
circle  of  highly  educated  men  of  literary  pursuits,  even  in 
default  of  great  geniuses.  The  North  American  Review, 
established  in  1815,  though  it  has  been  wittily  described  as 


90  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

"  ponderously  revolving  through  space "  for  a  few  years 
after  its  foundation,  did  not  exist  in  an  absolute  vacuum, 
but  was  scholarly,  if  somewhat  heavy.  Webster,  to  be  sure, 
was  a  Massachusetts  man — as  were  Everett  and  Choate — 
but  his  triumphs  were  won  in  the  wider  field  of  national 
politics.  There  was,  however,  a  movement  at  this  time,  in 
the  intellectual  life  of  Boston  and  eastern  Massachusetts, 
which,  though  not  immediately  contributory  to  the  finer 
kinds  of  literature,  prepared  the  way,  by  its  clarifying  and 
stimulating  influences,  for  the  eminent  writers  of  the  next 
generation.  This  was  the  Unitarian  revolt  against  Puritan 
orthodoxy,  in  which  William  Ellery  Channing  was  the  prin 
cipal  leader.  In  a  community  so  intensely  theological  as 
New  England,  it  was  natural  that  any  new  movement  in 
thought  should  find  its  point  of  departure  in  the  churches. 
Accordingly,  the  progressive  and  democratic  spirit  of  the 
age,  which  in  other  parts  of  the  country  took  other  shapes, 
assumed  in  Massachusetts  the  form  of  "  liberal  Christianity." 
Arminianism,  Socinianism,  and  other  phases  of  anti-Trin 
itarian  doctrine,  had  been  latent  in  some  of  the  Congrega 
tional  churches  of  Massachusetts  for  a  number  of  years. 
But  about  1812  the  heresy  broke  out  openly,  and  within  a  few 
years  from  that  date  most  of  the  oldest  and  wealthiest  church 
societies  of  Boston  and  its  vicinity  had  gone  over  to  Unita- 
rianism,  and  Harvard  College  had  been  captured  too.  In 
the  controversy  that  ensued,  and  which  was  carried  on  in 
numerous  books,  pamphlets,  sermons,  and  periodicals,  there 
were  eminent  disputants  on  both  sides.  So  far  as  this  con 
troversy  was  concerned  with  the  theological  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  it  has  no  place  in  a  history  of  literature.  But  the 
issue  went  far  beyond  that.  Channing  asserted  the  dignity 
of  human  nature  against  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  innate 
depravity,  and  affirmed  the  rights  of  human  reason  and 
man's  capacity  to  judge  of  God.  "  We  must  start  in  relig 
ion  from  our  own  souls,"  he  said.  And  in  his  Moral  Argu- 


THE  ERA  OF  NATIONAL  EXPANSION.  91 

ment  against  Calvinism,  1820,  he  wrote:  "Nothing  is  gained 
to  piety  by  degrading  human  nature,  for  in  the  competency 
of  this  nature  to  know  and  judge  of  God  all  piety  has  its 
foundation."  In  opposition  to  Edwards's  doctrine  of  neces 
sity  he  emphasized  the  freedom  of  the  will.  He  maintained 
that  the  Calvinistic  dogmas  of  original  sin,  fore-ordination, 
election  by  grace,  and  eternal  punishment  were  inconsistent 
with  the  divine  perfection,  and  made  God  a  monster.  In 
Channing's  view  the  great  sanction  of  religious  truth  is  the 
moral  sanction,  is  its  agreement  with  the  laws  of  conscience. 
He  was  a  passionate  vindicator  of  the  liberty  of  the  individ 
ual,  not  only  as  against  political  oppression,  but  against  the 
tyranny  of  public  opinion  over  thought  and  conscience :  "  We 
were  made  for  free  action.  This  alone  is  life,  and  enters 
into  all  that  is  good  and  great."  This  jealous  love  of  free 
dom  inspired  all  that  he  did  and  wrote.  It  led  him  to  join 
the  Antislavery  party.  It  expressed  itself  in  his  elaborate 
arraignment  of  Napoleon  in  the  Unitarian  organ,  the  Christian 
Examiner,  for  1827-28;  in  his  Remarks  on  Associations, 
and  his  paper  On  the  Character  and  Writings  of  John 
Milton,  1826.  This  was  his  most  considerable  contribution 
to  literary  criticism.  It  took  for  a  text  Milton's  recently 
discovered  Treatise  on  Christian  Doctrine — the  tendency  of 
which  was  anti-Trinitarian — but  it  began  with  a  general 
defense  of  poetry  against  "those  who  are  accustomed  to 
speak  of  poetry  as  light  reading."  This  would  now  seem  a 
somewhat  superfluous  introduction  to  an  article  in  any  Amer 
ican  review.  But  it  shows  the  nature  of  the  milieu  through 
which  the  liberal  movement  in  Boston  had  to  make  its  way. 
To  re-assert  the  dignity  and  usefulness  of  the  beautiful  arts 
was,  perhaps,  the  chief  service  which  the  Massachusetts 
Unitarians  rendered  to  humanism.  The  traditional  prejudice 
of  the  Puritans  against  the  ornamental  side  of  life  had  to  be 
softened  before  polite  literature  could  find  a  congenial  at 
mosphere  in  New  England.  In  Channing's  Remarks  on 


92  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

National  Literature,  reviewing  a  work  published  in  1823, 
he  asks  the  question,  "  Do  we  possess  what  may  be  called 
a  national  literature?"  and  answers  it,  by  implication  at 
least,  in  the  negative.  That  we  do  now  possess  a  national 
literature  is  in  great  part  due  to  the  influence  of  Channing 
and  his  associates,  although  his  own  writings,  being  in  the 
main  controversial,  and,  therefore,  of  temporary  interest,  may 
not  themselves  take  rank  among  the  permanent  treasures  of 
that  literature. 


1.  Washington  Irving.     Knickerbocker's  History  of  New 
York.     The  Sketch  Book.     Bracebridge  Hall.     Tales  of  a 
Traveler.     The  Alhambra.     Life  of  Oliver  Goldsmith. 

2.  James  Fenimore  Cooper.     The  Spy.     The  Pilot.     The 
Red  Hover.     The  Leather -stocking  Tales, 

3.  Daniel  Webster.      Great  Speeches  and  Orations.     Bos 
ton:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.     1879. 

4.  William  Ellery  Channing.     The   Character  and  Writ 
ings  of  John  Milton.     The  Life  and  Character  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte.     Slavery.     [Yols.   I   and   II   of  the   Works  of 
William  M  Channing.   Boston:  James  Munroe  &  Co.    1841.] 

5.  Joseph  Rodman  Drake.     The  Culprit  Fay.    The  Amer 
ican  Flag.     [Selected  Poems.     New  York.     1835.] 

6.  Fitz-Greene  Halleck.     Marco  Bozzaris.     Alnwick  Cas 
tle.     On  the  Death  of  Drake.     [Poems.    New  York.     1827.] 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  93 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   CONCORD  WRITERS. 
1837-1861. 

THERE  has  been  but  one  movement  in  the  history  of  the 
American  mind  which  has  given  to  literature  a  group  of  writ 
ers  having  coherence  enough  to  merit  the  name  of  a  school. 
This  was  the  great  humanitarian  movement,  or  series  of 
movements,  in  New  England,  which,  beginning  in  the  Uni- 
tarianism  of  Channing,  ran  through  its  later  phase  in  tran 
scendentalism,  and  spent  its  last  strength  in  the  antislaveiy 
agitation  and  the  enthusiasms  of  the  civil  war.  The  second 
stage  of  this  intellectual  and  social  revolt  was  transcendental 
ism,  of  which  Emerson  wrote,  in  1842:  "  The  history  of  genius 
and  of  religion  in  these  times  will  be  the  history  of  this  tend 
ency."  It  culminated  about  1840-41  in  the  establishment 
of  the  Dial  and  the  Brook  Farm  Community,  although  Emer 
son  had  given  the  signal  a  few  years  before  in  his  little 
volume  entitled  Nature,  1836,  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  at 
Harvard  on  the  American  Scholar,  1837,  and  his  address  in 
1838  before  the  Divinity  School  at  Cambridge.  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  (1803-82)  was  the  prophet  of  the  sect,  and  Con 
cord  was  its  Mecca  ;  but  the  influence  of  the  new  ideas  was 
not  confined  to  the  little  group  of  professed  transcendental- 
ists;  it  extended  to  all  the  young  writers  within  reach,  who 
struck  their  roots  deeper  into  the  soil  that  it  had  loosened  and 
freshened.  We  owe  to  it,  in  great  measure,  not  merely 
Emerson,  Alcott,  Margaret  Fuller,  and  Thoreau,  but  Haw 
thorne,  Lowell,  Whittier,  and  Holmes. 

In  its  strictest  sense  transcendentalism  was  a  restatement 


94  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  the  idealistic  philosophy,  and  an  application  of  its  beliefs 
to  religion,  nature,  and  life.  Brit  in  a  looser  sense,  and  as 
including  the  more  outward  manifestations  which  drew  pop 
ular  attention  most  strongly,  it  was  the  name  given  to  that 
spirit  of  dissent  and  protest,  of  universal  inquiry  and  exper 
iment,  which  marked  the  third  and  fourth  decades  of  this  cent 
ury  in  America,  and  especially  in  New  England.  The  move 
ment  was  contemporary  with  political  revolutions  in  Europe 
and  with  the  preaching  of  many  novel  gospels  in  religion,  in 
sociology,  in  science,  education,  medicine,  and  hygiene.  New 
sects  were  formed,  like  the  Swedenborgians,  Universalists, 
Spiritualists,  Millerites,  Second  Adventists,  Shakers,  Mormons, 
and  Gome-outers,  some  of  whom  believed  in  trances,  miracles, 
and  direct  revelations  from  the  divine  Spirit ;  others  in  the 
quick  coming  of  Christ,  as  deduced  from  the  opening  of  the 
seals  and  the  number  of  the  beast  in  the  Apocalypse  ;  and 
still  others  in  the  reorganization  of  society  and  of  the  family 
on  a  different  basis.  New  systems  of  education  were  tried, 
suggested  by  the  writings  of  the  Swiss  reformer,  Pestalozzi, 
and  others.  The  pseudo-sciences  of  mesmerism  and  of  phre 
nology,  as  taught  by  Gall  and  Spurzheim,  had  numerous  fol 
lowers.  In  medicine,  homeopathy,  hydropathy,  and  what 
Dr.  Holmes  calls  "  kindred  delusions,"  made  many  disciples. 
Numbers  of  persons,  influenced  by  the  doctrines  of  Graham 
and  other  vegetarians,  abjured  the  use  of  animal  food,  as  in 
jurious  not  only  to  health  but  to  a  finer  spirituality.  Not  a 
few  refused  to  vote  or  pay  taxes.  The  writings  of  Fourier 
and  Saint-Simon  were  translated,  and  societies  were  estab 
lished  where  co-operation  and  a  community  of  goods  should 
take  the  place  of  selfish  competition. 

About  the  year  1840  there  were  some  thirty  of  these 
"  phalansteries  "  in  America,  many  of  which  had  their  organs 
in  the  shape  of  weekly  or  monthly  journals,  which  advocated 
the  principle  of  Association.  The  best  known  of  these  was 
probably  the  Harbinger,  the  mouth-piece  of  the  famous 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  95 

Brook  Farm  Community,  which  was  founded  at  West  Rox- 
bury,  Mass.,  in  1841,  and  lasted  till  1847.  The  head  man  of 
Brook  Farm  was  George  Ripley,  a  Unitarian  clergyman,  who 
had  resigned  his  pulpit  in  Boston  to  go  into  the  movement, 
and  who  after  its  failure  became  and  remained  for  many 
years  literary  editor  of  the  New  York  Tribune.  Among  his 
associates  were  Charles  A.  Dana — now  the  editor  of  the  Sun 
— Margaret  Fuller,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  and  others  not 
unknown  to  fame.  The  Harbinger,  which  ran  from  1845  to 
1849 — two  years  after  the  break-up  of  the  community — had 
among  its  contributors  many  who  were  not  Brook  Farmers, 
but  who  sympathized  more  or  less  with  the  experiment.  Of 
the  number  were  Horace  Greeley,  Dr.  F.  H.  Hedge — who 
did  so  much  to  introduce  American  readers  to  German  liter 
ature — J.  S.  D wight,  the  musical  critic,  C.  P.  Cranch,  the 
poet,  and  younger  men,  like  G.  W.  Curtis  and  T.  W.  Hig- 
ginson.  A  reader  of  to-day,  looking  into  an  odd  volume  of 
the  Harbinger,  will  find  in  it  some  stimulating  writing,  to 
gether  with  a  great  deal  of  unintelligible  talk  about  "  Har 
monic  Unity,"  "Love  Germination,"  and  other  matters  now 
fallen  silent.  The  most  important  literary  result  of  this 
experiment  at  "plain  living  and  high  thinking,"  with  its 
queer  mixture  of  culture  and  agriculture,  was  Hawthorne's 
Blithedale  Romance,  which  has  for  its  background  an  ideal 
ized  picture  of  the  community  life ;  whose  heroine,  Zenobia, 
has  touches  of  Margaret  Fuller  ;  and  whose  hero,  with  his 
hobby  of  prison  reform,  was  a  type  of  the  one-idea'd  philan 
thropists  that  abounded  in  such  an  environment.  Haw 
thorne's  attitude  was  always  in  part  one  of  reserve  and  crit 
icism,  an  attitude  which  is  apparent  in  the  reminiscences  of 
Brook  Farm  in  his  American  Note  Books,  wherein  he  speaks 
with  a  certain  resentment  of  "  Miss  Fuller's  transcendental 
heifer,"  which  hooked  the  other  cows,  and  was  evidently  to 
Hawthorne's  mind  not  unsymbolic  in  this  respect  of  Miss 
Fuller  herself. 


96  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

It  was  the  day  of  seers  and  "  Orphic  "  utterances  ;  the  air 
was  full  of  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity  and  thick  with  philan 
thropic  projects  and  plans  for  the  regeneration  of  the  uni 
verse.  The  figure  of  the  wild-eyed,  long-haired  reformer — 
the  man  with  a  panacea — the  "  crank  "  of  our  later  terminol 
ogy — became  a  familiar  one.  He  abounded  at  non-resistance 
conventions  and  meetings  of  universal  peace  societies  and  of 
woman's  rights  associations.  The  movement  had  its  grotesque 
aspects,  which  Lowell  has  described  in  his  essay  on  Thoreau. 
"  Bran  had  its  apostles  and  the  pre-sartorial  simplicity  of 
Adam  its  martyrs,  tailored  impromptu  from  the  tar-pot.  .  .  . 
Not  a  few  impecunious  zealots  abjured  the  use  of  money 
(unless  earned  by  other  people),  professing  to  live  on  the 
internal  revenues  of  the  spirit.  .  .  .  Communities  were  es 
tablished  where  every  thing  was  to  be  common  but  common 
sense." 

This  ferment  has  long  since  subsided,  and  much  of  what 
was  then  seething  has  gone  oif  in  vapor  or  other  volatile 
products.  But  some  very  solid  matters  have  also  been  pre 
cipitated,  some  crystals  of  poetry  translucent,  symmetrical, 
enduring.  The  immediate  practical  outcome  was  disappoint 
ing,  and  the  external  history  of  the  agitation  is  a  record  of 
failed  experiments,  spurious  sciences,  Utopian  philosophies, 
and  sects  founded  only  to  dwindle  away  or  to  be  re-absorbed 
into  some  form  of  orthodoxy.  In  the  eyes  of  the  conserva 
tive,  or  the  worldly-minded,  or  of  the  plain  people  who  could 
not  understand  the  enigmatic  utterances  of  the  reformers, 
the  dangerous  or  ludicrous  sides  of  transcendentalism  were 
naturally  uppermost.  Nevertheless  the  movement  was  but  a 
new  avatar  of  the  old  Puritan  spirit  ;  its  moral  earnestness, 
its  spirituality,  its  tenderness  for  the  individual  conscience. 
Puritanism,  too,  in  its  day  had  run  into  grotesque  extremes. 
Emerson  bore  about  the  same  relation  to  the  absurder  out- 
croppings  of  transcendentalism  that  Milton  bore  to  the  New 
Lights,  Ranters,  Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  etc.,  of  his  time. 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  97 

There  is  in  him  that  mingling  of  idealism  with  an  abiding 
sanity,  and  even  a  Yankee  shrewdness,  which  characterizes 
the  race.  The  practical,  inventive,  calculating,  money-getting 
side  of  the  Yankee  has  been  made  sufficiently  obvious.  But 
the  deep  heart  of  New  England  is  full  of  dreams,  mysticism, 
romance : 

"  And  in  the  day  of  sacrifice, 

When  heroes  piled  the  pyre, 
The  dismal  Massachusetts  ice 

Burned  more  than  others'  fire." 

The  one  element  which  the  odd  and  eccentric  develop 
ments  of  this  movement  shared  in  common  with  the  real 
philosophy  of  transcendentalism  was  the  rejection  of  author 
ity  and  the  appeal  to  the  private  consciousness  as  the  sole 
standard  of  truth  and  right.  This  principle  certainly  lay  in 
the  ethical  systems  of  Kant  and  Fichte,  the  great  tran- 
scendentalists  of  Germany.  It  had  been  strongly  asserted  by 
Channing.  Nay,  it  was  the  starting-point  of  Puritanism  it 
self,  which  had  drawn  away. from  the  ceremonial  religion  of 
the  English  Church,  and  by  its  Congregational  system  had 
made  each  church  society  independent  in  doctrine  and  wor 
ship.  And  although  Puritan  orthodoxy  in  New  England  had 
grown  rigid  and  dogmatic  it  had  never  used  the  weapons  of 
obscurantism.  By  encouraging  education  to  the  utmost,  it 
had  shown  its  willingness  to  submit  its  beliefs  to  the  fullest 
discussion  and  had  put  into  the  hands  of  dissent  the  means 
with  which  to  attack  them. 

In  its  theological  aspect  transcendentalism  was  a  departure 
from  conservative  Unitarianism,  as  that  had  been  from  Cal 
vinism.  From  Edwards  to  Channing,  from  Channing  to 
Emerson  and  Theodore  Parker,  there  was  a  natural  and  log 
ical  unfolding;  not  logical  in  the  sense  that  Channing  ac 
cepted  Edwards's  premises  and  pushed  them  out  to  their 
conclusions,  or  that  Parker  accepted  all  of  Chann ing's 
premises,  but  in  the  sense  that  the  rigid  pushing  out  of 


98  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Edwards's  premises  into  their  conclusions  by  himself  and  his 
followers  had  brought  about  a  moral  reductio  ad  absurdwu 
and  a  state  of  opinion  against  which  Charming  rebelled  ;  and 
that  Channing,  as  it  seemed  to  Parker,  stopped  short  in  the 
carrying  out  of  his  own  principles.  Thus  the  "Channing 
Unitarians,"  while  denying  that  Christ  was  God,  had  held 
that  he  was  of  divine  nature,  was  the  Son  of  God,  and  had 
existed  before  he  came  into  the  world.  While  rejecting  the 
doctrine  of  the  "  vicarious  sacrifice "  they  maintained  that 
Christ  was  a  mediator  and  intercessor,  and  that  his  super 
natural  nature  was  testified  by  miracles.  For  Parker  and 
Emerson  it  was  easy  to  take  the  step  to  the  assertion  that 
Christ  was  a  good  and  great  man,  divine  only  in  the  sense 
that  God  possessed  him  more  fully  than  any  other  man 
known  in  history;  that  it  was  his  preaching  and  example 
that  brought  salvation  to  men,  and  not  any  special  mediation 
or  intercession,  and  that  his  own  words  and  acts,  and  not 
miracles,  are  the  only  and  the  sufficient  witness  to  his  mis 
sion.  In  the  view  of  the  transcendentalists  Christ  was  as 
human  as  Buddha,  Socrates,  or  Confucius,  and  the  Bible  was 
but  one  among  the  "  Ethnical  Scriptures  "  or  sacred  writings 
of  the  peoples,  passages  from  which  were  published  in  the 
transcendental  organ,  the  Dial.  As  against  these  new  views 
Channing  Unitarianism  occupied  already  a  conservative  po 
sition.  The  Unitarians  as  a  body  had  never  been  very  nu 
merous  outside  of  eastern  Massachusetts.  They  had  a  few 
churches  in  New  York  and  in  the  larger  cities  and  towns 
elsewhere,  but  the  sect,  as  such,  was  a  local  one.  Orthodoxy 
made  a  sturdy  fight  against  the  heresy,  under  leaders  like 
Leonard  Woods  and  Moses  Stuart,  of  Andover,  and  Lyman 
Beecher,  of  Connecticut.  In  the  neighboring  State  of  Con 
necticut,  for  example,  there  was  until  lately,  for  a  period  of 
several  years,  no  distinctly  Unitarian  congregation  worship 
ing  in  a  church  edifice  of  its  own.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Unitarians  claimed,  with  justice,  that  their  opinions  had,  to  a 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  99 

great  extent,  modified  the  theology  of  the  orthodox  churches. 
The  writings  of  Horace  Bushnell,  of  Hartford,  one  of  the 
most  eminent  Congregational  divines,  approach  Unitarianism 
in  their  interpretation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement; 
and  the  "  progressive  orthodoxy "  of  Andover  is  certainly 
not  the  Calvinism  of  Thomas  Hooker  or  of  Jonathan  Ed 
wards.  But  it  seemed  to  the  transcendentalists  that  con 
servative  Unitarianism  was  too  negative  and  "  cultured,"  and 
Margaret  Fuller  complained  of  the  coldness  of  the  Boston 
pulpits;  while,  contrariwise,  the  central  thought  of  tran 
scendentalism,  that  the  soul  has  an  immediate  connection 
with  God,  was  pronounced  by  Dr.  Channing  a  "  crude  spec 
ulation."  This  was  the  thought  of  Emerson's  address  in 
1838  before  the  Cambridge  Divinity  School,  and  it  was  at 

"once  made  the  object  of  attack  by  conservative  Unitarians 
like  Henry  Ware  and  Andrews  Norton.  The  latter,  in  an 
address  before  the  same  audience,  on  the  Latest  Form  of 
Infidelity,  said:  "Nothing  is  left  that  can  be  called  Chris 
tianity  if  its  miraculous  character  be  denied.  .  .  .  There  can 
be  no  intuition,  no  direct  perception,  of  the  truth  of  Chris 
tianity."  And  in  a  pamphlet  supporting  the  same  side  of 
the  question  he  added:  "  It  is  not  an  intelligible  error,  but  a 

'  mere  absurdity,  to  maintain  that  we  are  conscious,  or  have 
an  intuitive  knowledge,  of  the  being  of  God,  of  our  own 
immortality,  ...  or  of  any  other  fact  of  religion."  Ripley 
and  Parker  replied  in  Emerson's  defense;  but  Emerson  him 
self  would  never  be  drawn  into  controversy.  He  said  that 
he  could  not  argue.  He  announced  truths;  his  method  was 
that  of  the  seer,  not  of  the  disputant.  In  1832  Emerson, 
who  was  a  Unitarian  clergyman,  and  descended  from  eight 
generations  of  clergymen,  had  resigned  the  pastorate  of  the 
Second  Church  of  Boston  because  he  could  not  conscien 
tiously  administer  the  sacrament  of  the  communion — which 
he  regarded  as  a  mere  act  of  commemoration — in  the  sense 
in  which  it  was  understood  by  his  parishioners.  Thenceforth, 


100  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

though  he  sometimes  occupied  Unitarian  pulpits,  and  was, 
indeed,  all  his  life  a  kind  of  "  lay  preacher,"  he  never  as 
sumed  the  pastorate  of  a  church.  The  representative  of 
transcendentalism  in  the  pulpit  was  Theodore  Parker,  an 
eloquent  preacher,  an  eager  debater,  and  a  prolific  writer  on 
many  subjects,  whose  collected  works  fill  fourteen  volumes. 
Parker  was  a  man  of  strongly  human  traits,  passionate,  in 
dependent,  intensely  religious,  but  intensely  radical,  who 
made  for  himself  a  large  personal  following.  The  more  ad 
vanced  Aving  of  the  Unitarians  were  called,  after  him,  "  Par- 
kerites."  Many  of  the  Unitarian  churches  refused  to  "  fel 
lowship  "  with  him;  and  the  large  congregation,  or  audience, 
which  assembled  in  Music  Hall  to  hear  his  sermons  was 
stigmatized  as  a  "  boisterous  assembly  "  which  came  to  hear 
Parker  preach  irreligion. 

It  has  been  said  that,  on  its  philosophical  side,  New  En 
gland  transcendentalism  was  a  restatement  of  idealism.  The 
impulse  came  from  Germany,  from  the  philosophical  writings 
of  Kant,  Fichte,  Jacobi,  and  Schelling,  and  from  the  works 
of  Coleridge  and  Carlyle,  who  had  domesticated  German 
thought  in  England.  In  Channing's  Remarks  on  a  Na 
tional  Literature,  quoted  in  our  last  chapter,  the  essayist 
urged  that  our  scholars  should  study  the  authors  of  France 
and  Germany  as  one  means  of  emancipating  American  let 
ters  from  a  slavish  dependence  on  British  literature.  And 
in  fact  German  literature  began,  not  long  after,  to  be  eagerly 
studied  in  New  England.  Emerson  published  an  American 
edition  of  Carlyle's  Miscellanies,  including  his  essays  on 
German  writers  that  had  appeared  in  England  between  1822 
and  1830.  In  1838  Ripley  began  to  publish  Specimens  of 
Foreign  Standard  Literature,  which  extended  to  fourteen 
volumes.  In  his  work  of  translating  and  supplying  intro 
ductions  to  the  matter  selected,  he  was  helped  by  Ripley, 
Margaret  Fuller,  John  S.  D wight,  and  others  who  had  more 
or  less  connection  with  the  transcendental  movement. 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  101 

The  definition  of  the  new  faith  given  by  Emerson  in  his 
lecture  on  the  Transcendentalist,  1842,  is  as  follows  :  "  What 
is  popularly  called  transcendentalism  among  us  is  idealism. 

.  .  The  idealism  of  the  present  day  acquired  the  name  of 
transcendental  from  the  use  of  -that  term  by  Immanuel  Kant, 
who  replied  to  the  skeptical  philosophy  of  Locke,  which  in 
sisted  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  intellect  which  was  not 
previously  in  the  experience  of  the  senses,  by  showing  that 
there  was  a  very  important  class  of  ideas,  or  imperative 
forms,  which  did  not  come  by  experience,  but  through  which 
experience  was  acquired  ;  that  these  were  intuitions  of  the 
mind  itself,  and  he  denominated  them  transcendental  forms." 
Idealism  denies  the  independent  existence  of  matter.  Tran 
scendentalism  claims  for  the  innate  ideas  of  God  and  the  soul 
a  higher  assurance  of  reality  than  for  the  knowledge  of  the 
outside  world  derived  through  the  senses.  Emerson  shares 
the  "noble  doubt"  of  idealism.  He  calls  the  universe  a 
shade,  a  dream,  "  this  great  apparition."  "  It  is  a  sufficient 
account  of  that  appearance  we  call  the  world,"  he  wrote  in 
Nature,  "  that  God  will  teach  a  human  mind,  and  so  makes 
it  the  receiver  of  a  certain  number  of  congruent  sensations 
which  we  call  sun  and  moon,  man  and  woman,  house  and 
trade.  In  my  utter  impotence  to  test  the  authenticity  of  the 
report  of  my  senses,  to  know  whether  the  impressions  on  me 
correspond  with  outlying  objects,  what  difference  does  it 
make  whether  Orion  is  up  there  in  heaven  or  some  god 
paints  the  image  in  the  firmament  of  the  soul  ? "  On  the 
other  hand,  our  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God  and  of  our 
own  souls,  and  our  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong,  are  im 
mediate,  and  are  independent  of  the  senses.  We  are  in  di 
rect  communication  with  the  "  Over-soul,"  the  infinite  Spirit. 
"  The  soul  in  man  is  the  background  of  our  being — an  im 
mensity  not  possessed,  that  cannot  be  possessed."  "  From 
within  or  from  behind,  a  light  shines  through  us  upon  things, 
and  makes  us  aware  that  we  are  nothing,  but  the  light  is 


102  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

all."  Revelation  is  "an  influx  of  the  Divine  mind  into  our 
mind.  It  is  an  ebb  of  the  individual  rivulet  before  the  flow 
ing  surges  of  the  sea  of  life."  In  moods  of  exaltation,  and 
especially  in  the  presence  of  nature,  this  contact  of  the  in 
dividual  soul  with  the  absolute  is  felt.  "  All  mean  egotism 
vanishes.  I  become  a  transparent  eyeball;  I  am  nothing;  1 
see  all;  the  currents  of  the  Universal  Being  circulate  through 
me ;  I  am  part  and  particle  of  God."  The  existence  and 
attributes  of  God  are  not  deducible  from  history  or  from 
natural  theology,  but  are  thus  directly  given  us  in  conscious 
ness.  In  his  essay  on  the  Transcendental  1st  Emerson  says: 
"  His  experience  inclines  him  to  behold  the  procession  of 
facts  you  call  the  world  as  flowing  perpetually  outward  from 
an  invisible,  unsounded  center  in  himself;  center  alike  of 
him  and  of  them,  and  necessitating  him  to  regard  all  things 
as  having  a  subjective  or  relative  existence — relative  to  that 
aforesaid  Unknown  Center  of  him.  There  is  no  bar  or  wall 
in  the  soul  where  man,  the  effect,  ceases,  and  God,  the  cause, 
begins.  We  lie  open  on  one  side  to  the  deeps  of  spiritual 
nature,  to  the  attributes  of  God." 

Emerson's  point  of  view,  though  familiar  to  students  of 
philosophy,  is  strange  to  the  popular  understanding,  and 
hence  has  arisen  the  complaint  of  his  obscurity.  Moreover, 
he  apprehended  and  expressed  these  ideas  as  a  poet,  in  fig 
urative  and  emotional  language,  and  not  as  a  metaphysician, 
in  a  formulated  statement.  His  own  position  in  relation  to 
systematic  philosophers  is  described  in  what  he  says  of  Plato, 
in  his  series  of  sketches  entitled  Representative  Men,  1850: 
"  He  has  not  a  system.  The  dearest  disciples  and  defenders 
are  at  fault.  He  attempted  a  theory  of  the  universe,  and 
his  theory  is  not  complete  or  self-evident.  One  man  thinks 
he  means  this,  and  another  that;  he  has  said  one  thing  in  one 
place,  and  the  reverse  of  it  in  another  place."  It  happens, 
therefore,  that,  to  many  students  of  more  formal  philosophies, 
Emerson's  meaning  seems  elusive,  and  he  appears  to  write 


THE  OOXCORD  WRITERS.  103 

from  temporary  moods  and  to  contradict  himself.  Had  he 
attempted  a  reasoned  exposition  of  the  transcendental  phi 
losophy,  instead  of  writing  essays  and  poems,  he  might  have 
added  one  more  to  the  number  of  system-mongers;  but  he 
would  not  have  taken  that  significant  place  which  he  occu 
pies  in  the  general  literature  of  *the  time,  nor  exerted  that 
wide  influence  upon  younger  writers  which  has  been  one  of 
the  stimulating  forces  in  American  thought.  It  was  because 
Emerson  was  a  poet  that  he  is  our  Emerson.  And  yet  it 
would  be  impossible  to  disentangle  his  peculiar  philosophical 
ideas  from  the  body  of  his  writings  and  to  leave  the  latter 
to  stand  upon  their  merits  as  literature  merely.  He  is  the 
poet  of  certain  high  abstractions,  and  his  religion  is  central 
to  all  his  work — excepting,  perhaps,  his  English  Traits,  1856, 
an  acute  study  of  national  characteristics  ;  and  a  few  of  his 
essays  and  verses,  wrhich  are  independent  of  any  particular 
philosophical  stand-point. 

When  Emerson  resigned  his  parish  in  1832  he  made  a 
short  trip  to  Europe,  where  he  visited  Carlyle  at  Craigen- 
puttock,  and  Landor  at  Florence.  On  his  return  he  retired, 
to  his  birthplace,  the  village  of  Concord,  Massachusetts,  and 
settled  down  among  his  books  and  his  fields,  becoming  a  sort 
of  "  glorified  farmer,"  but  issuing  frequently  from  his  retire 
ment  to  instruct  and  delight  audiences  of  thoughtful  people 
at  Boston  and  at  other  points  all  through  the  co*untry. 
Emerson  was  the  perfection  of  a  lyceum  lecturer.  His  man 
ner  was  quiet  but  forcible,  his  voice  of  charming  quality, 
and  his  enunciation  clean-cut  and  refined.  The  sentence  was 
his  unit  in  composition.  His  lectures  seemed  to  begin  any 
where  and  to  end  anywhere  and  to  resemble  strings  of  ex 
quisitely  polished  sayings  rather  than  continuous  discourses. 
His  printed  essays,  with  unimportant  exceptions,  wrere  first 
written  and  delivered  as  lectures.  In  1836  he  published  his 
first  book,  Nature,  which  remains  the  most  systematic  state 
ment  of  his  philosophy.  It  opened  a  fresh  spring-head  in 


104  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

American  thought,  and  the  words  of  its  introduction  an 
nounced  that  its  author  had  broken  with  the  past.  "  Why 
should  not  we  also  enjoy  an  original  relation  to  the  universe  ? 
Why  should  not  we  have  a  poetry  and  philosophy  of  insight 
and  not  of  tradition,  and  a  religion  by  revelation  to  us  and 
not  the  history  of  theirs  ?  " 

It  took  eleven  years  to  sell  five  hundred  copies  of  this  little 
book.  But  the  year  following  its  publication  the  remarkable 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  at  Cambridge,  on  the  American 
Scholar,  electrified  the  little  public  of  the  university.  This 
is  described  by  Lowell  as  "  an  event  without  any  former 
parallel  in  our  literary  annals,  a  scene  to  be  always  treasured 
in  the  memory  for  its  picturesqueness  and  its  inspiration. 
What  crowded  and  breathless  aisles,  what  windows  cluster 
ing  with  eager  heads,  what  grim  silence  of  foregone  dis 
sent!"  To  Concord  come  many  kindred  spirits,  drawn  by 
Emerson's  magnetic  attraction.  Thither  came,  from  Con 
necticut,  Amos  Bronson  Alcott,  born  a  few  years  before 
Emerson,  whom  he  outlived;  a  quaint  and  benignant  figure, 
a  visionary  and  a  mystic  even  among  the  transcendentalists 
themselves,  and  one  w^ho  lived  in  unworldly  simplicity  the 
life  of  the  soul.  Alcott  had  taught  school  at  Cheshire,  Conn., 
and  afterward  at  Boston  on  an  original  plan — compelling  his 
scholars,  for  example,  to  flog  him,  when  they  did  wrong,  in 
stead  of  taking  a  flogging  themselves.  The  experiment  was 
successful  until  his  Conversations  on  the  Gospels,  in  Boston, 
and  his  Insistence  upon  admitting  colored  children  to  his 
benches,  offended  conservative  opinion  and  broke  up  his 
school.  Alcott  renounced  the  eating  of  animal  food  in  1835. 
He  believed  in  the  union  of  thought  and  manual  labor,  and 
supported  himself  for  some  years  by  the  work  of  his  hands, 
gardening,  cutting  wood,  etc.  He  traveled  into  the  West 
and  elsewhere,  holding  conversations  on  philosophy,  educa 
tion,  and  religion.  He  set  up  a  little  community  at  the  vil 
lage  of  Harvard,  Massachusetts,  which  was  rather  less  success- 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  105 

f ul  than  Brook  Farm,  and  he  contributed  Orphic,  Sayings  to 
the  Dial,  which  were  harder  for  the  exoteric  to  understand 
than  even  Emerson's  Brahma  or  the  Over-soul. 

Thither  came,  also,  Sarah  Margaret  Fuller,  the  most  intel 
lectual  woman  of  her  time  in  America,  an  eager  student  of 
Greek  and  German  literature  and  an  ardent  seeker  after  the 
True,  the  Good,  and  the  Beautiful.  She  threw  herself  into 
many  causes — such  as  temperance  and  the  higher  education 
of  women.  Her  brilliant  conversation  classes  in  Boston  at 
tracted  many  "minds"  of  her  own  sex.  Subsequently,  as 
literary  editor  of  the  JVew  York  Tribune,  she  furnished  a 
wider  public  with  reviews  and  book  notices  of  great  ability. 
She  took  part  in  the  Brook  Farm  experiment,  and  she  edited 
the  Dial  for  a  time,  contributing  to  it  the  papers  afterward 
expanded  into  her  most  considerable  book,  Woman  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century.  In  1846  she  went  abroad,  and  at  Rome 
took  part  in  the  revolutionary  movement  of  Mazzini,  having 
charge  of  one  of  the  hospitals  during  the  siege  of  the  city  by 
the  French.  In  1847  she  married  an  impecunious  Italian 
nobleman,  the  Marquis  Ossoli.  In  1850  the  ship  on  which 
she  was  returning  to  America,  with  her  husband  and  child, 
was  wrecked  on  Fire  Island  beach  and  all  three  were  lost. 
Margaret  Fuller's  collected  writings  are  somewhat  disap 
pointing,  being  mainly  of  temporary  interest.  She  lives  less 
through  her  books  than  through  the  memoirs  of  her  friends, 
Emerson,  James  Freeman  Clarke,  T.  W.  Higginson,  and  oth 
ers  who  knew  her  as  a  personal  influence.  Her  strenuous 
and  rather  overbearing  individuality  made  an  impression  not 
altogether  agreeable  upon  many  of  her  contemporaries. 
Lowell  introduced  a  caricature  of  her  as  "  Miranda  "  into  his 
Fable  for  Critics,  and  Hawthorne's  caustic  sketch  of  her, 
preserved  in  the  biography  written  by  his  son,  has  given 
great  offense  to  her  admirers.  "  Such  a  determination  to  eat 
this  huge  universe!  "  was  Carlyle's  characteristic  comment  on 
her  appetite  for  knowledge  and  aspirations  after  perfection. 


106  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETT-ERS. 

To  Concord  also  came  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  who  took  up 
his  residence  there  first  at  the  "  Old  Manse,"  and  afterward 
at  "  The  Wayside."  Though  naturally  an  idealist,  he  said 
that  he  came  too  late  to  Concord  to  fall  decidedly  under 
Emerson's  influence.  Of  that  he  would  have  stood  in  little 
danger  even  had  he  come  earlier.  lie  appreciated  the  deep 
and  subtle  quality  of  Emerson's  imagination,  but  his  own 
shy  genius  always  jealously  guarded  its  independence  and 
resented  the  too  close  approaches  of  an  alien  mind.  Among 
the  native  disciples  of  Emerson  at  Concord  the  most  note 
worthy  were  Henry  Thoreau,  and  his  friend  and  biographer, 
William  Ellery  Channing,  Jr.,  a  nephew  of  the  great  Chan- 
ning.  Channing  was  a  contributor  to  the  Dial,  and  he  pub 
lished  a  volume  of  poems  which  elicited  a  fiercely  contemptu 
ous  review  from  Edgar  Poe.  Though  disfigured  by  affecta 
tion  and  obscurity,  many  of  Channing's  verses  were  dis 
tinguished  by  true  poetic  feeling,  and  the  last  line  of  his 
little  piece,  A  Poet's  JFTope, 

'  If  my  bark  sink  'tis  to  another  sea," 

has  taken  a  permanent  place  in  the  literature  of  transcendent 
alism. 

The  private  organ  of  the  transcendentalists  was  the  Dial, 
a  quarterly  magazine,  published  from  1840  to  1844,  and 
edited  by  Emerson  and  Margaret  Fuller.  Among  its  con 
tributors,  besides  those  already  mentioned,  were  Ripley, 
Thoreau,  Parker,  James  Freeman  Clarke,  Charles  A.  Dana, 
John  S.  Dwight,  C.  P.  Cranch,  Charles  Emerson,  and  Will 
iam  H.  Channing,  another  nephew  of  Dr.  Channing.  It  con 
tained,  along  with  a  good  deal  of  rubbish,  some  of  the  best 
poetry  and  prose  that  has  been  published  in  America.  The 
most  lasting  part  of  its  contents  were  the  contributions  of 
Emerson  and  Thoreau.  But  even  as  a  whole  it  was  a  unique 
way-mark  in  the  history  of  our  literature. 

From  time  to  time  Emerson  collected  and  published  his 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  107 

lectures  under  various  titles.  A  first  series  of  Essays  came 
out  in  1841,  and  a  second  in  1844  ;  the  Conduct  of  Life  in 
1860,  Society  and  Solitude  in  1870,  Letters  and  Social  Aims 
in  1876,  and  the  Fortune  of  the  Republic  in  1878.  In  1847 
he  issued  a  volume  of  Poems,  and  1865  Mayday  and  Other 
Poems.  These  writings,  as  a  whole,  were  variations  on  a 
single  theme,  expansions  and  illustrations  of  the  philosophy 
set  forth  in  Nature,  and  his  early  addresses.  They  were 
strikingly  original,  rich  in  thought,  filled  with  wisdom,  with 
lofty  morality  and  spiritual  religion.  Emerson,  said  Lowell, 
first  "  cut  the  cable  that  bound  us  to  English  thought  and 
gave  us  a  chance  at  the  dangers  and  glories  of  blue  water." 
Nevertheless,  as  it  used  to  be  the  fashion  to  find  an  English 
analogue  for  every  American  writer,  so  that  Cooper  was 
called  the  American  Scott,  and  Mrs.  Sigourney  was  described 
as  the  Hemans  of  America,  a  well-worn  critical  tradition  has 
coupled  Emerson  with  Carlyle.  That  his  mind  received  a 
nudge  from  Carlyle's  early  essays  and  from  Sartor  Resartus 
is  beyond  a  doubt.  They  were  life-long  friends  and  corre 
spondents,  and  Emerson's  Representative  Men  is,  in  some 
sort,  a  counterpart  of  Carlyle's  Hero  Worship.  But  in  tem 
per  and  style  the  two  writers  were  widely  different.  Car 
lyle's  pessimism  and  dissatisfaction  with  the  general  drift  of 
things  gained  upon  him  more  and  more,  while  Emerson  was 
a  consistent  optimist  to  the  end.  The  last  of  his  writings 
published  during  his  life-time,  the  Fortune  of  the  Republic, 
contrasts  strangely  in  its  hopefulness  with  the  desperation 
of  Carlyle's  later  utterances.  Even  in  presence  of  the  doubt 
as  to  man's  personal  immortality  he  takes  refuge  in  a  high 
and  stoical  faith.  "I  think  all  sound  minds  rest  on  a  certain 
preliminary  conviction,  namely,  that  if  it  be  best  that  con 
scious  personal  life  shall  continue  it  will  continue,  and  if  not 
best,  then  it  will  not;  and  we,  if  we  saw  the  whole,  should 
of  course  see  that  it  was  better  so."  It  is  this  conviction  that 
gives  to  Emerson's  writings  their  serenity  and  their  tonic 


108  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

quality  at  the  same  time  that  it  narrows  the  range  of  his 
dealings  with  life.  As  the  idealist  declines  to  cross-examine 
those  facts  which  he  regards  as  merely  phenomenal,  and 
looks  upon  this  outward  face  of  things  as  upon  a  mask  not 
worthy  to  dismay  the  fixed  soul,  so  the  optimist  turns  away 
his  eyes  from  the  evil  which  he  disposes  of  as  merely  nega 
tive,  as  the  shadow  of  the  good.  Hawthorne's  interest  in 
the  problem  of  sin  finds  little  place  in  Emerson's  philosophy. 
Passion  comes  not  nigh  him,  and  Faust  disturbs  him  with 
its  disagreeableness.  Pessimism  is  to  him  "  the  only  skep 
ticism." 

The  greatest  literature  is  that  which  is  most  broadly  hu 
man,  or,  in  other  words,  that  which  will  square  best  with  all 
philosophies.  But  Emerson's  genius  was  interpretative  rather 
than  constructive.  The  poet  dwells  in  the  cheerful  world  of 
phenomena.  He  is  most  the  poet  who  realizes  most  intensely 
the  good  and  the  bad  of  human  life.  But  Idealism  makes 
experience  shadowy  and  subordinates  action  to  contempla 
tion.  To  it  the  cities  of  men,  with  their  "  frivolous  popula 
tions," 

"  are  but  sailing  foam-bells 
Along  thought's  causing  stream." 

Shakespeare  does  not  forget  that  the  world  will  one  day 
vanish  "like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision,"  and  that  we 
ourselves  are  "such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  on;"  but  this 
is  not  the  mood  in  which  he  dwells.  Again :  while  it  is  for 
the  philosopher  to  reduce  variety  to  unity,  it  is  the  poet's 
task  to  detect  the  manifold  under  uniformity.  In  the  great 
creative  poets,  in  Shakespeare  and  Dante  and  Goethe,  how 
infinite  the  swarm  of  persons,  the  multitude  of  forms  !  But 
with  Emerson  the  type  is  important,  the  common  element. 
"  In  youth  we  are  mad  for  persons.  But  the  larger  experi 
ence  of  man  discovers  the  identical  nature  appearing  through 
them  all."  "  The  same — the  same!  "  he  exclaims  in  his  essay 
on  Plato.  "Friend  and  foe  are  of  one  stuff;  the  plowman, 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  109 

the  plow,  and  the  furrow  are  of  one  stuff."  And  this  is  the 
thought  in  Brahma  : 

"  They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out ; 

When  me  they  fly  I  am  the  wings : 
I  am  the  doubter  and  the  doubt, 

And  I  the  hymn  the  Brahmin  sings." 

It  is  not  easy  to  fancy  a  writer  who  holds  this  altitude  toward 
"persons"  descending  to  the  composition  of  a  novel  or  a 
play.  Emerson  showed,  indeed,  a  fine  power  of  character- 
analysis  in  his  English  Traits  and  Representative  Men  and 
in  his  memoirs  of  Thoreau  and  Margaret  Fuller.  There  is 
even  a  sort  of  dramatic  humor  in  his  portrait  of  Socrates. 
But  upon  the  whole  he  stands  midway  between  constructive 
artists,  whose  instinct  it  is  to  tell  a  story  or  sing  a  song,  and 
philosophers,  like  Schelling,  who  give  poetic  expression  to  a 
system  of  thought.  He  belongs  to  the  class  of  minds  of 
which  Sir  Thomas  Browne  is  the  best  English  example.  He 
set  a  high  value  upon  Browne,  to  whose  style  his  own,  though 
far  more  sententious,  bears  a  resemblance.  Browne's  saying, 
for  example,  "  All  things  are  artificial,  for  nature  is  the  art 
of  God,"  sounds  like  Emerson,  whose  workmanship,  for  the 
rest,  in  his  prose  essays  was  exceedingly  fine  and  close.  He 
was  not  afraid  to  be  homely  and  racy  in  expressing  thought 
of  the  highest  spirituality.  "Hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star" 
is  a  good  instance  of  his  favorite  manner. 

Emerson's  verse  often  seems  careless  in  technique.  Most 
of  his  pieces  are  scrappy  and  have  the  air  of  runic  rimes, 
or  little  oracular  "  voicings "  —  as  they  say  at  Concord 
— in  rhythmic  shape,  of  single  thoughts  on  "  Worship," 
"  Character,"  "  Heroism,"  "  Art,"  "  Politics,"  "  Culture,"  etc. 
TJhe  content  is  the  important  thing,  and  the  form  is  too  fre 
quently  awkward  or  bald.  Sometimes,  indeed,  in  the  clear- 
obscure  of  Emerson's  poetry  the  deep  wisdom  of  the  thought 
finds  its  most  natural  expression  in  the  imaginative  simplicity 


110  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  the  language.  But  though  this  artlessness  in  him  became 
too  frequently  in  his  imitators,  like  Thoreau  and  Ellery 
Channing,  an  obtruded  simplicity,  among  his  own  poems  are 
many  that  leave  nothing  to  be  desired  in  point  of  wording 
and  of  verse.  His  Hymn  Sung  at  the  Completion  of  the 
Concord  Monument,  in  1836,  is  the  perfect  model  of  an 
occasional  poem.  Its  lines  were  on  every  one's  lips  at  the 
time  of  the  centennial  celebrations  in  1876,  and  "the  shot 
heard  round  the  world  "  has  hardly  echoed  farther  than  the 
song  which  chronicled  it.  Equally  current  is  the  stanza 
from  Voluntaries: 

"So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 
When  Duty  whispers  low,  '  Thou  must,' 

The  youth  replies.  '  I  can.'  " 

So,  too,  the  famous  lines  from  the  Problem : 

"  The  hand  that  rounded  Peter's  dome, 
And  groined  the  aisles  of  Christian  Rome, 
Wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity. 
Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free; 
He  builded  better  than  he  knew ; 
The  conscious  stone  to  beauty  grew." 

The  most  noteworthy  of  Emerson's  pupils  was  Henry 
David  Thoreau,  "  the  poet-naturalist."  After  his  graduation 
from  Harvard  College,  in  1837,  Thoreau  engaged  in  school- 
teaching  and  in  the  manufacture  of  lead-pencils,  but  soon 
gave  up  all  regular  business  and  devoted  himself  to  walking, 
reading,  and  the  study  of  nature.  He  was  at  one  time  pri 
vate  tutor  .in  a  family  on  Staten  Island,  and  he  supported 
himself  for  a  season  by  doing  odd  jobs  in  land-surveying  for 
the  farmers  about  Concord.  In  1845  he  built,  with  his  ow,n 
hands,  a  small  cabin  on  the  banks  of  Walden  Pond,  near 
Concord,  and  lived  there  in  seclusion  for  two  years.  His  ex 
penses  during  these  years  were  nine  cents  a  day,  and  he  gave 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  Ill 

an  account  of  his  experiment  in  his  most  characteristic  book, 
Walden,  published  in  1854.  His  Week  on  the  Concord  and 
Merrimac  Rivers  appeared  in  1849.  From  time  to  time  he 
went  farther  afield,  and  his  journeys  were  reported  in  Cape 
Cod9  the  Maine  Woods,  Excursions,  and  A  Yankee  in  Can 
ada,  all  of  which,  as  well  as  a  volume  of  Letters  and  Early 
Spring  in  Massachusetts,  have  been  given  to  the  public  since 
his  death,  which  happened  in  1862.  No  one  has  lived  so 
close  to  nature,  and  written  of  it  so  intimately,  as  Thoreau. 
His  life  was  a  lesson  in  economy  and  a  sermon  on  Emerson's 
text,  "  Lessen  your  denominator."  He  wished  to  reduce  exist 
ence  to  the  simplest  terms — to 

"live  all  alone 
Close  to  the  bone, 
And  where  life  is  sweet 
Constantly  eat." 

He  had  a  passion  for  the  wild,  and  seems  like  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  reversion  to  the  type  of  the  Red  Indian.  The  most 
distinctive  note  in  Thoreau  is  his  inhumanity.  Emerson  spoke 
of  him  as  a  "  perfect  piece  of  stoicism."  "  Man,"  said  Tho 
reau,  "  is  only  the  point  on  which  I  stand."  He  strove  to 
realize  the  objective  life  of  nature — nature  in  its  aloofness 
from  man;  to  identify  himself,  with  the  moose  and  the  mount 
ain.  He  listened,  with  his  ear  close  to  the  ground,  for  the 
voice  of  the  earth.  "  What  are  the  trees  saying  ?  "  he  ex 
claimed.  Following  upon  the  trail  of  the  lumberman,  he 
asked  the  primeval  wilderness  for  its  secret,  and 

"  saw  beneath  dim  aisles,  in  odorous  beds, 
The  slight  linnsea  hang  its  twin-born  heads." 

He  tried  to  interpret  the  thought  of  Ktaadn  and  to  fathom 
the  meaning  of  the  billows  on  the  back  of  Cape  Cod,  in  their 
indifference  to  the  shipwrecked  bodies  that  they  rolled 
ashore.  "After  sitting  in  my  chamber  many  days,  reading 


112  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

the  poets,  I  have  been  out  early  on  a  foggy  morning  and 
heard  the  cry  of  an  owl  in  a  neighboring  wood  as  from  a 
nature  behind  the  common,  unexplored  by  science  or  by  lit 
erature.  None  of  the  feathered  race  has  yet  realized  my 
youthful  conceptions  of  the  woodland  depths.  I  had  seen 
the  red  election-birds  brought  from  their  recesses  on  my 
comrade's  string,  and  fancied  that  their  plumage  would  as 
sume  stranger  and  more  dazzling  colors,  like  the  tints  of 
evening,  in  proportion  as  I  advanced  farther  into  the  dark 
ness  and  solitude  of  the  forest.  Still  less  have  I  seen  such 
strong  and  wild  tints  on  any  poet's  string." 

It  was  on  the  mystical  side  that  Thoreau  apprehended 
transcendentalism.  Mysticism  has  been  defined  as  the  soul's 
recognition  of  its  identity  with  nature.  This  thought  lies 
plainly  in  Schelling's  philosophy,  and  he  illustrated  it  by  his 
famous  figure  of  the  magnet.  Mind  and  nature  are  one; 
they  are  the  positive  and  negative  poles  of  the  magnet.  In 
man,  the  Absolute — that  is,  God — becomes  conscious  of  him 
self;  makes  of  himself,  as  nature,  an  object  to  himself  as 
mind.  "  The  souls  of  men,"  said  Schelling,  "  are  but  the  in 
numerable  individual  eyes  with  which  our  infinite  World- 
Spirit  beholds  himself."  This  thought  is  also  clearly  present 
in  Emerson's  view  of  nature,  and  has  caused  him  to  be  ac 
cused  of  pantheism.  But  if  by  pantheism  is  meant  the  doc 
trine  that  the  underlying  principle  of  the  universe  is  matter 
or  force,  none  of  the  transcendentalists  was  a  pantheist.  In 
their  view  nature  was  divine.  Their  poetry  is  always 
haunted  by  the  sense  of  a  spiritual  reality  which  abides  be 
yond  the  phenomena.  Thus  in  Emerson's  Two  Rivers  : 

"  Thy  summer  voice,  Musketaquit,1 

Repeats  the  music  of  the  rain, 
But  sweeter  rivers  pulsing  flit 

Through  thee  as  thou  through  Concord  plain. 

1  The  Indian  name  of  Concord  River. 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  113 

"Thou  in  thy  narrow  banks  art  pent: 

The  stream  I  love  unbounded  goes ; 
Through  flood  and  sea  and  firmament, 

Through  light,  through  life,  it  forward  flows. 

"  I  see  the  inundation  sweet, 

I  hear  the  spending  of  the  stream, 
Through  years,  through  men,  through  nature  fleet, 

Through  passion,  thought,  through  power  and  dream." 

This  mood  occurs  frequently  in  Thoreau.  The  hard 
world  of  matter  becomes  suddenly  all  fluent  and  spiritual, 
and  he  sees  himself  in  it — sees  God.  "  This  earth,"  he  cries, 
"which  is  spread  out  like  a  map  around  me,  is  but  the  lining 
of  my  inmost  soul  exposed."  "  In  me  is  the  sucker  that  I 
see;  "  and,  of  Walden  Pond, 

"I  am  its  stony  shore, 

And  the  breeze  that  passes  o'er." 

"  Suddenly  old  Time  winked  at  me — ah,  you  know  me, 
you  rogue — and  news  had  come  that  IT  was  well.  That  an 
cient  universe  is  in  such  capital  health,  I  think,  undoubtedly, 
it  will  never  die.  ...  I  see,  smell,  taste,  hear,  feel  that  ever 
lasting  something  to  which  we  are  allied,  at  once  our  maker, 
our  abode,  our  destiny,  our  very  selves."  It  was  something 
ulterior  that  Thoreau  sought  in  nature.  "The  other  world," 
he  wrote,  "is  all  my  art:  my  pencils  will  draw  no  other:  my 
jack-knife  will  cut  nothing  else."  Thoreau  did  not  scorn, 
however,  like  Emerson,  to  "examine  too  microscopically  the 
universal  tablet."  lie  was  a  close  observer  and  accurate  re 
porter  of  the  ways  of  birds  and  plants  and  the  minuter 
aspects  of  nature.  He  has  had  many  followers,  who  have 
produced  much  pleasant  literature  on  out-door  life.  But  in 
none  of  them  is  there  that  unique  combination  of  the  poet, 
the  naturalist,  and  the  mystic  which  gives  his  page  its  wild 
original  flavor.  He  had  the  woodcraft  of  a  hunter  and  the 
eye  of  a  botanist,  but  his  imagination  did  not  stop  short  with 
8 


114  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

the  fact.  The  sound  of  a  tree  falling  in  the  Maine  woods 
was  to  him  "  as  though  a  door  had  shut  somewhere  in  the 
damp  and  shaggy  wilderness."  He  saw  small  things  in  cos 
mic  relations.  His  trip  down  the  tame  Concord  has  for  the 
reader  the  excitement  of  a  voyage  of  exploration  into  far 
and  unknown  regions.  The  river  just  above  Sherman's 
Bridge,  in  time  of  flood  "  when  the  wind  blows  freshly  on  a 
raw  March  day,  heaving  up  the  surface  into  dark  and  sober 
billows,"  was  like  Lake  Huron,  "  and  you  may  run  aground 
on  Cranberry  Island,"  and  "  get  as  good  a  freezing  there  as 
anywhere  on  the  North-west  coast."  He  said  that  most  of 
the  phenomena  described  in  Kane's  voyages  could  be  observed 
in  Concord. 

The  literature  of  transcendentalism  was  like  the  light  of 
the  stars  in  a  winter  night,  keen  and  cold  and  high.  It  had 
the  pale  cast  of  thought,  and  was  almost  too  spiritual  and 
remote  to  "  hit  the  sense  of  mortal  sight."  But  it  was  at 
least  indigenous.  If  not  an  American  literature — not  national 
and  not  inclusive  of  all  sides  of  American  life — it  was,  at  all 
events,  a  genuine  New  England  literature  and  true  to  the 
spirit  of  its  section.  The  tough  Puritan  stock  had  at  last 
put  forth  a  blossom  which  compared  with  the  warm,  robust 
growths  of  English  soil  even  as  the  delicate  wind  flower  of 
the  northern  spring  compares  with  the  cowslips  and  daisies 
of  old  England. 

In  1842  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  (1804-64),  the  greatest 
American  romancer,  came  to  Concord.  He  had  recently  left 
Brook  Farm,  had  just  been  married,  and  with  his  bride  he 
settled  down  in  the  "  Old  Manse "  for  three  paradisaical 
years.  A  picture  of  this  protracted  honeymoon  and  this 
sequestered  life,  as  tranquil  as  the  slow  stream  on  whose 
banks  it  was  passed,  is  given  in  the  introductory  chapter  to 
his  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  1846,  and  in  the  more  per 
sonal  and  confidential  records  of  his  American  Note  Books, 
posthumously  published.  Hawthorne  was  thirty-eight  when 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  115 

he  took  his  place  among  the  Concord  literati.  His  child 
hood  and  youth  had  been  spent  partly  at  his  birthplace,  the 
old  and  already  somewhat  decayed  sea-port  town  of  Salem, 
and  partly  at  his  grandfather's  farm  on  Sebago  Lake,  in 
Maine,  then  on  the  edge  of  the  primitive  forest.  Maine  did 
not  become  a  State,  indeed,  until  1820,  the  year  before  Haw 
thorne  entered  Bowdoin  College,  whence  he  was  graduated 
in  1825,  in  the  same  class  with  Henry  W.  Longfellow  and 
one  year  behind  Franklin  Pierce,  afterward  President  of  the 
United  States.  After  leaving  college  Hawthorne  buried 
himself  for  years  in  the  seclusion  of  his  home  at  Salem.  His 
mother,  who  was  early  widowed,  had  withdrawn  entirely 
from  the  world.  For  months  at  a  time  Hawthorne  kept  his 
room,  seeing  no  other  society  than  that  of  his  mother  and 
sisters,  reading  all  sorts  of  books  and  writing  wild  tales,  most 
of  which  he  destroyed  as  soon  as  he  had  written  them.  At 
twilight  he  would  emerge  from  the  house  for  a  solitary  ram 
ble  through  the  streets  of  the  town  or  along  the  sea-side. 
Old  Salem  had  much  that  was  picturesque  in  its  associations. 
It  had  been  the  scene  of  the  witch  trials  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  it  abounded  in  ancient  mansions,  the  homes  of 
retired  whalers  and  India  merchants.  Hawthorne's  father 
had  been  a  ship  captain,  and  many  of  his  ancestors  had  fol 
lowed  the  sea.  One  of  his  forefathers,  moreover,  had  been 
a  certain  Judge  Hawthorne,  who  in  1691  had  sentenced  sev 
eral  of  the  witches  to  death.  The  thought  of  this  affected 
Hawthorne's  imagination  with  a  pleasing  horror,  and  he  util 
ized  it  afterward  in  his  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.  Many 
of  the  old  Salem  houses,  too,  had  their  family  histories, 
with  now  and  then  the  hint  of  some  obscure  crime  or  dark 
misfortune  which  haunted  posterity  with  its  curse  till  all  the 
stock  died  out  or  fell  into  poverty  and  evil  ways,  as  in  the 
Pyncheon  family  of  Hawthorne's  romance.  In  the  preface 
to  the  Marble  Faun  Hawthorne  wrote:  "No  author  without 
a  trial  can  conceive  of  the  difficulty  of  writing  a  romance 


116  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

about  a  country  where  there  is  no  shadow,  no  antiquity,  no 
mystery,  no  picturesque  and  gloomy  wrong,  nor  any  thing  but 
a  commonplace  prosperity  in  broad  and  simple  daylight."  And 
yet  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  environment  could  have 
been  found  more  fitted  to  his  peculiar  genius  than  this  of  his 
native  town,  or  any  preparation  better  calculated  to  ripen 
the  faculty  that  was  in  him  than  these  long,  lonely  years  of 
waiting  and  brooding  thought.  From  time  to  time  he  con 
tributed  a  story  or  a  sketch  to  some  periodical,  such  as  S.  G. 
Goodrich's  annual,  the  Token,  or  the  Knickerbocker  Maga 
zine.  Some  of  these  attracted  the  attention  of  the  judicious; 
but  they  were  anonymous  and  signed  by  various  noms  de 
plume.,  and  their  author  was  at  this  time — to  use  his  own 
words — "the  obscurest  man  of  letters  in  America."  In  1828 
he  had  issued  anonymously  and  at  his  own  expense  a  short  ro 
mance,  entitled  Fanshawe.  It  had  little  success,  and  copies 
of  the  first  edition  are  now  exceedingly  rare.  In  1837  he 
published  a  collection  of  his  magazine  pieces  under  the  title, 
Twice- Told  Tales.  The  book  was  generously  praised  in  the 
North  American  Review  by  his  former  classmate,  Long 
fellow  ;  and  Edgar  Poe  showed  his  keen  critical  perception 
by  predicting  that  the  writer  would  easily  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  imaginative  literature  in  America  if  he  would  dis 
card  allegory,  drop  short  stories,  and  compose  a  genuine 
romance.  Poe  compared  Hawthorne's  work  with  that  of 
the  German  romancer,  Tieck,  and  it  is  interesting  to  find 
confirmation  of  this  dictum  in  passages  of  the  American 
Note  Books,  in  which  Hawthorne  speaks  of  laboring  over 
Tieck  with  a  German  dictionary.  The  Twice- Told  Tales  are 
the  work  of  a  recluse,  who  makes  guesses  at  life  from  a 
knowledge  of  his  own  heart,  acquired  by  a  habit  of  intro 
spection,  but  who  has  had  little  contact  with  men.  Many  of 
them  were  shadowy,  and  others  were  morbid  and  unwhole 
some.  But  their  gloom  was  of  an  interior  kind,  never  the 
physically  horrible  of  Poe.  It  arose  from  weird  psycho- 


TITE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  117 

logical  situations  like  that  of  Ethan  Brand  in  his  search  for 
the  unpardonable  sin.  Hawthorne  was  true  to  the  inherited 
instinct  of  Puritanism;  he  took  the  conscience  for  his  theme, 
and  in  these  early  tales  he  was  already  absorbed  in  the  prob 
lem  of  evil,  the  subtle  ways  in  which  sin  works  out  its  retri 
bution,  and  the  species  of  fate  or  necessity  that  the  wrong 
doer  makes  for  himself  in  the  inevitable  sequences  of  his 
crime.  Hawthorne  was  strongly  drawn  toward  symbols  and 
types,  and  never  quite  followed  Poe's  advice  to  abandon 
allegory.  The  Scarlet  Letter  and  his  other  romances  are 
not,  indeed,  strictly  allegories,  since  the  characters  are  men 
and  women  and  not  mere  personifications  of  abstract  quali 
ties.  Still,  they  all  have  a  certain  allegorical  tinge.  In  the 
Marble  Faun,  for  example,  Hilda,  Kenyon,  Miriam,  and 
Donatello  have  been  ingeniously  explained  as  personifications 
respectively  of  the  conscience,  the  reason,  the  imagination, 
and  the  senses.  Without  going  so  far  as  this,  it  is  possible 
to  see  in  these  and  in  Hawthorne's  other  creations  something 
typical  and  representative.  He  uses  his  characters  like  alge 
braic  symbols  to  work  out  certain  problems  with;  they  are 
rather  more  and  yet  rather  less  than  flesh  and  blood  individ 
uals.  The  stories  in  Twice-Told  Tales  and  in  the  second  col 
lection,  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  1846,  are  more  openly 
allegorical  than  his  later  work.  Thus  the  Minister's  Black 
Veil  is  a  sort  of  anticipation  of  Arthur  Dimmesdale  in  the 
Scarlet  Letter.  From  1846  to  1849  Hawthorne  held  the 
position  of  surveyor  of  the  Custom  House  of  Salem.  In  the 
preface  to  the  Scarlet  Letter  he  sketched  some  of  the  gov 
ernment  officials  with  whom  this  office  had  brought  him  into 
contact  in  a  way  that  gave  some  offense  to  the  friends  of 
the  victims  and  a  great  deal  of  amusement  to  the  public. 
Hawthorne's  humor  was  quiet  and  fine,  like  Irving's,  but  less 
genial  and  with  a  more  satiric  edge  to  it.  The  book  last 
named  was  written  at  Salem  and  published  in  1850,  just  be 
fore  its  author's  removal  to  Lenox,  now  a  sort  of  inland 


118  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Newport,  but  then  an  unfashionable  resort  among  the  Berk 
shire  hills.  Whatever  obscurity  may  have  hung  over  Haw 
thorne  hitherto  was  effectually  dissolved  by  this  powerful 
tale,  which  was  as  vivid  in  coloring  as  the  implication  of  its 
title.  Hawthorne  chose  for  his  background  the  somber  life 
of  the  early  settlers  of  New  England.  He  had  always  been 
drawn  toward  this  part  of  American  history,  and  in  Twice- 
Told  Tales  had  given  some  illustrations  of  it  in  Endicottfs 
Red  Cross  and  .Legends  of  the  Province  House.  Against 
this  dark  foil  moved  in  strong  relief  the  figures  of  Hester 
Prynne,  the  woman  taken  in  adultery;  her  paramour,  the 
Rev.  Arthur  Dimmesdale ;  her  husband,  old  Roger  Chilling- 
worth;  and  her  illegitimate  child.  In  tragic  power,  in  its 
grasp  of  the  elementary  passions  of  human  nature  and  its 
deep  and  subtle  insight  into  the  inmost  secrets  of  the  heart, 
this  is  Hawthorne's  greatest  book.  He  never  crowded  his 
canvas  with  figures.  In  the  Blithedale  Romance  and  the 
Marble  Faun  there  is  the  same  parti  carre  or  group  of  four 
characters.  In  the  Souse  of  the  Seven  Gables  there  are  five. 
The  last  mentioned  of  these,  published  in  1852,  was  of  a 
more  subdued  intensity  than  the  Scarlet  Letter,  but  equally 
original,  and,  upon  the  whole,  perhaps  equally  good.  The 
Blithedale  Romance,  published  in  the  same  year,  though  not 
strikingly  inferior  to  the  others,  adhered  more  to  conventional 
patterns  in  its  plot  and  in  the  sensational  nature  of  its  end 
ing.  The  suicide  of  the  heroine  by  drowning,  and  the  terri 
ble  scene  of  the  recovery  of  her  body,  were  suggested  to  the 
author  by  an  experience  of  his  own  on  Concord  River,  the 
account  of  which,  in  his  own  words,  may  be  read  in  Julian 
Hawthorne's  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and  His  Wife.  In  1852 
Hawthorne  returned  to  Concord  and  bought  the  "  Wayside  " 
property,  which  he  retained  until  his  death.  But  in  the  fol 
lowing  year  his  old  college  friend  Pierce,  now  become  Presi 
dent,  appointed  him  consul  to  Liverpool,  and  he  went  abroad 
for  seven  years.  The  most  valuable  fruit  of  his  foreign  resi- 


THE  CONCORD  WRITERS.  119 

dence  was  the  romance  of  the  Marble  Faun,  1860,  the  longest 
of  his  fictions  and  the  richest  in  descriptive  beauty.  The 
theme  of  this  was  the  development  of  the  soul  through  the 
experience  of  sin.  There  is  a  haunting  mystery  thrown 
about  the  story,  like  a  soft  veil  of  mist,  veiling  the  begin 
ning  and  the  end.  There  is  even  a  delicate  teasing  sugges 
tion  of  the  preternatural  in  Donatello,  the  Faun,  a  creation 
as  original  as  Shakespeare's  Caliban  or  Fouque's  Undine,  and 
yet  quite  on  this  side  the  border-line  of  the  human.  Our 
Old  Home,  a  book  of  charming  papers  on  England,  was  pub 
lished  in  1863.  Manifold  experience  of  life  and  contact  with 
men,  affording  scope  for  his  always  keen  observation,  had 
added  range,  fullness,  warmth  to  the  imaginative  subtlety 
which  had  manifested  itself  even  in  his  earliest  tales.  Two 
admirable  books  for  children,  the  Wonder  Book  and  Tangle- 
wood  Tales,  in  which  the  classical  mythologies  were  retold, 
should  also  be  mentioned  in  the  list  of  Hawthorne's  writings, 
as  well  as  the  American,  English,  and  Italian  Note  Books, 
the  first  of  which  contains  the  seed-thoughts  of  some  of  his 
finished  works,  together  with  hundreds  of  hints  for  plots, 
episodes,  descriptions,  etc.,  which  he  never  found  time  to 
work  out.  Hawthorne's  style,  in  his  first  sketches  and  sto 
ries  a  little  stilted  and  "  bookish,"  gradually  acquired  an  ex 
quisite  perfection,  and  is  as  well  worth  study  as  that  of  any 
prose  classic  in  the  English  tongue. 

Hawthorne  was  no  transcendentalist.  He  dwelt  much  in 
a  world  of  ideas,  and  he  sometimes  doubted  whether  the 
tree  on  the  bank  or  its  image  in  the  stream  were  the  more 
real.  But  this  had  little  in  common  with  the  philosophical 
idealism  of  his  neighbors.  He  reverenced  Emerson,  and  he 
held  kindly  intercourse — albeit  a  silent  man  and  easily  bored 
— with  Thoreau  and  Ellery  Channing,  and  even  with  Mar 
garet  Fuller.  But  his  sharp  eyes  saw  whatever  was  whim 
sical  or  weak  in  the  apostles  of  the  new  faith.  He  had 
little  enthusiasm  for  causes  or  reforms,  and  among  so  many 


120  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Abolitionists  he  remained  a  Democrat,  and  even  wrote  a 
campaign  life  of  his  friend  Pierce. 

The  village  of  Concord  has  perhaps  done  more  for  Amer 
ican  literature  than  the  city  of  New  York.  Certainly  there 
are  few  places  where  associations,  both  patriotic  and  poetic, 
cluster  so  thickly.  At  one  side  of  the  grounds  of  the  Old 
Manse — which  has  the  river  at  its  back — runs  down  a  shaded 
lane  to  the  Concord  monument  and  the  figure  of  the  Minute 
Man  and  the  successor  of  "  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the 
flood."  Scarce  two  miles  away,  among  the  woods,  is  little 
Walden — "  God's  drop."  The  men  who  made  Concord 
famous  are  asleep  in  Sleepy  Hollow,  yet  still  their  memory 
prevails  to  draw  seekers  after  truth  to  the  Concord  Summer 
School  of  Philosophy,  which  met  annually,  a  few  years  since, 
to  reason  high  of  "God,  Freedom,  and  Immortality,"  next 
door  to  the  "  Wayside,"  and  under  the  hill  on  whose  ridge 
Hawthorne  wore  a  path  as  he  paced  up  and  down  beneath 
the  hemlocks. 


1.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.    Nature.  Tlie  American  Scholar. 
Literary  Ethics.      The   Transcendent alist.      The   Over-soul. 
Address  before  the    Cambridge   Divinity  School.     English 
Traits.     Representative  Men.     Poems. 

2.  Henry   David    Thoreau.      Excursions.       Walden.      A 
Week  on  the   Concord  and  Merrimac  Rivers.      Cape  Cod. 
The  Maine  Woods. 

3.  Nathaniel   Hawthorne.      Mosses  from  an    Old  Manse. 
The  Scarlet  Letter.     The  House  of  the  Seven   Gables.     The 
Blithedale  Romance.     The  Marble  Faun.     Our  Old  Home. 

4.  Transcendentalism  in  New  England.     By  O.  B.  Froth- 
ingham.     New  York:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.     18 75. 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS.  121 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   CAMBRIDGE   SCHOLARS. 
1837-1861. 

WITH  few  exceptions,  the  men  who  have  made  American 
literature  what  it  is  have  been  college  graduates.  And  yet 
our  colleges  have  not  commonly  been,  in  themselves,  literary 
centers.  Most  of  them  have  been  small  and  poor,  and  sit 
uated  in  little  towns  or  provincial  cities.  Their  alumni 
scatter  far  and  wide  immediately  after  graduation,  and  even 
those  of  them  who  may  feel  drawn  to  a  life  of  scholarship 
or  letters  find  little  to  attract  them  at  the  home  of  their 
alma  mater,  and  seek  by  preference  the  larger  cities,  where 
periodicals  and  publishing  houses  offer  some  hope  of  sup 
port  in  a  literary  career.  Even  in  the  older  and  better 
equipped  universities  the  faculty  is  usually  a  corps  of  work 
ing  scholars,  each  man  intent  upon  his  specialty  and  rather 
inclined  to  undervalue  merely  "  literary "  performance.  In 
many  cases  the  fastidious  and  hypercritical  turn  of  mind 
which  besets  the  scholar,  the  timid  conservatism  which  nat 
urally  characterizes  an  ancient  seat  of  learning,  and  the 
spirit  of  theological  conformity  which  suppresses  free  dis 
cussion,  have  exerted  their  benumbing  influence  upon  the 
originality  and  creative  impulse  of  their  inmates.  Hence  it 
happens  that,  while  the  contributions  of  American  college 
teachers  to  the  exact  sciences,  to  theology  and  philology, 
metaphysics,  political  philosophy,  and  the  severer  branches 
of  learning  have  been  honorable  and  important,  they  have  as 
a  class  made  little  mark  upon  the  general  literature  of  the 
country.  The  professors  of  literature  in  our  colleges  are 


122  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

usually  persons  who  have  made  no  additions  to  literature,  and 
the  professors  of  rhetoric  seem  ordinarily  to  have  been  selected 
to  teach  students  how  to  write  for  the  reason  that  they  them 
selves  have  never  written  any  thing  that  any  one  has  ever  read. 
To  these  remarks  the  Harvard  College  of  some  fifty  years 
ago  offers  some  striking  exceptions.  It  was  not  the  large 
and  fashionable  university  that  it  has  lately  grown  to  be, 
with  its  multiplied  elective  courses,  its  numerous  faculty,  and 
its  somewhat  motley  collection  of  undergraduates;  but  a 
small  school  of  the  classics  and  mathematics,  with  something 
of  ethics,  natural  science,  and  the  modern  languages  added  to 
its  old-fashioned,  scholastic  curriculum,  and  with  a  very  homo 
geneous  clientele,  drawn  mainly  from  the  Unitarian  families  of 
eastern  Massachusetts.  Nevertheless  a  finer  intellectual  life,  in 
many  respects,  was  lived  at  old  Cambridge  within  the  years 
covered  by  this  chapter  than  nowadays  at  the  same  place,  or 
at  any  date  in  any  other  American  university  town.  The 
neighborhood  of  Boston,  where  the  commercial  life  has  never 
so  entirely  overlain  the  intellectual  as  in  New  York  and 
Philadelphia,  has  been  a  standing  advantage  to  Harvard 
College.  The  recent  upheaval  in  religious  thought  had 
secured  toleration  and  made  possible  that  free  and  even 
audacious  interchange  of  ideas  without  which  a  literary  at 
mosphere  is  impossible.  From  these,  or  from  whatever 
causes,  it  happened  that  the  old  Harvard  scholarship  had  an 
elegant  and  tasteful  side  to  it,  so  that  the  dry  erudition  of 
the  schools  blossomed  into  a  generous  culture,  and  there 
were  men  in  the  professors'  chairs  who  were  no  less  efficient 
as  teachers  because  they  were  also  poets,  orators,  wits,  and 
men  of  the  world.  In  the  seventeen  years  from  1821  to  1839 
there  were  graduated  from  Harvard  College  Emerson, 
Holmes,  Sumner,  Phillips,  Motley,  Thoreau,  Lowell,  and 
Edward  Everett  Hale;  some  of  whom  took  up  their  resi 
dence  at  Cambridge,  others  at  Boston,  and  others  at  Con 
cord,  which  was  quite  as  much  a  spiritual  suburb  of  Boston 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS.  123 

as  Cambridge  was.  In  1836,  when  Longfellow  became 
professor  of  modern  languages  at  Harvard,  Summer  was 
lecturing  in  the  Law  School.  The  following  year — in  which 
Thoreau  took  his  bachelor's  degree — witnessed  the  delivery 
of  Emerson's  Phi  Beta  Kappa  lecture  on  the  American 
Scholar  in  the  college  chapel,  and  Wendell  Phillips's  speech  on 
the  Murder  of  Lovejoy  in  Faneuil  Hall.  Lowell,  whose  de 
scription  of  the  impression  produced  by  the  former  of  these 
famous  addresses  has  been  quoted  in  a  previous  chapter,  was 
an  under-graduate  at  the  time.  He  took  his  degree  in  1838, 
and  in  1855  succeeded  Longfellow  in  the  chair  of  modern 
languages.  Holmes  had  been  chosen  in  1847  professor  of 
anatomy  and  physiology  in  the  Medical  School — a  position 
which  he  held  until  1882.  The  historians,  Prescott  and  Ban 
croft,  had  been  graduated  in  1814  and  1 817  respectively.  The 
former's  first  important  publication,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
appeared  in  1837.  Bancroft  had  been  a  tutor  in  the  college  in 
1822-23,  and  the  initial  volume  of  his  History  of  the  United 
States  was  issued  in  1835.  Another  of  the  Massachusetts 
school  of  historical  writers,  Francis  Parkman,  took  his  first 
degree  at  Harvard  in  1844.  Cambridge  was  still  hardly 
more  than  a  village,  a  rural  outskirt  of  Boston,  such  as 
Lowell  described  it  in  his  article,  Cambridge  Thirty  Years 
Ago,  originally  contributed  to  Putnam's  Monthly  in  1853, 
and  afterward  reprinted  in  his  Fireside  Travels,  1864.  The 
situation  of  a  university  scholar  in  old  Cambridge  was  thus 
an  almost  ideal  one.  Within  easy  reach  of  a  great  city, 
with  its  literary  and  social  clubs,  its  theaters,  lecture 
courses,  public  meetings,  dinner-parties,  etc.,  he  yet  lived 
withdrawn  in  an  academic  retirement  among  elm-shaded 
avenues  and  leafy  gardens,  the  dome  of  the  Boston  State- 
house  looming  distantly  across  the  meadows  where  the 
Charles  laid  its  "  steel  blue  sickle "  upon  the  variegated, 
plush-like  ground  of  the  wide  marsh.  There  was  thus,  at 
all  times  during  the  quarter  of  a  century  embraced  between 


124  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMEEICAN  LETTERS. 

1837  and  1861,  a  group  of  brilliant  men  resident  in  or  about 
Cambridge  and  Boston,  meeting  frequently  and  intimately, 
and  exerting  upon  one  another  a  most  stimulating  influence. 
Some  of  the  closer  circles — all  concentric  to  the  university — 
of  which  this  group  was  loosely  composed  were  laughed  at 
by  outsiders  as  "  Mutual  Admiration  Societies."  Such  was, 
for  instance,  the  "Five  of  Clubs,"  whose  members  were 
Longfellow,  Sumner,  C.  C.  Felton,  professor  of  Greek  at 
Harvard,  and  afterward  president  of  the  college;  G.  S.  Hil- 
lard,  a  graceful  lecturer,  essayist,  and  poet,  of  a  somewhat 
amateurish  kind;  and  Henry  R.  Cleveland,  of  Jamaica  Plain, 
a  lover  of  books  and  a  writer  of  them. 

Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow  (1807-82),  the  most 
widely  read  and  loved  of  American  poets — or,  indeed,  of  all 
contemporary  poets  in  England  and  America — though  iden 
tified  with  Cambridge  for  nearly  fifty  years,  was  a  native  of 
Portland,  Maine,  and  a  graduate  of  Bowdoin  College,  in  the 
same  class  with  Hawthorne.  Since  leaving  college,  in  1825, 
he  had  studied  and  traveled  for  some  years  in  Europe,  and 
had  held  the  professorship  of  modern  languages  at  Bowdoin. 
He  had  published  several  text-books,  a  number  of  articles  on 
the  Romance  languages  and  literatures  in  the  North  Ameri 
can  Review,  a  thin  volume  of  metrical  translations  from  the 
Spanish,  a  few  original  poems  in  various  periodicals,  and  the 
pleasant  sketches  of  European  travel  entitled  Outre-Mer. 
But  Longfellow's  fame  began  with  the  appearance  in  1839  of 
his  Voices  of  the  Night.  Excepting  an  earlier  collection  by 
Bryant  this  was  the  first  volume  of  real  poetry  published  in 
New  England,  and  it  had  more  warmth  and  sweetness,  a 
greater  richness  and  variety,  than  Bryant's  work  ever  pos 
sessed.  Longfellow's  genius  was  almost  feminine  in  its  flex 
ibility  and  its  sympathetic  quality.  It  readily  took  the 
color  of  its  surroundings  and  opened  itself  eagerly  to  impres 
sions  of  the  beautiful  from  every  quarter,  but  especially  from 
books.  This  first  volume  contained  a  few  things  written 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS.  125 

during  his  student  days  at  Bowdoin,  one  of  which,  a  blank- 
verse  piece  on  Autumn,  clearly  shows  the  influence  of  Bry 
ant's  Thanatopsis.  Most  of  these  juvenilia  had  nature  for 
their  theme,  but  they  were  not  so  sternly  true  to  the  New 
England  landscape  as  Thoreati  or  Bryant.  The  skylark  and 
the  ivy  appear  among  their  scenic  properties,  and  in  the 
best  of  them,  Woods  in  Winter,  it  is  the  English  "haw 
thorn  "  and  not  any  American  tree,  through  which  the  gale 
is  made  to  blow,  just  as  later  Longfellow  uses  "  rooks  "  in 
stead  of  crows.  The  young  poet's  fancy  was  instinctively 
putting  out  feelers  toward  the  storied  lands  of  the  Old 
World,  and  in  his  Hymn  of  the  Moravian  Nuns  of  Bethle 
hem  he  transformed  the  rude  church  of  the  Moravian  sisters 
to  a  cathedral  with  "  glimmering  tapers,"  swinging  censers, 
chancel,  altar,  cowls,  and  "  dim  mysterious  aisle."  After  his 
visit  to  Europe  Longfellow  returned  deeply  imbued  with 
the  spirit  of  romance.  It  was  his  mission  to  refine  our  na 
tional  taste  by  opening  to  American  readers,  in  their  own 
vernacular,  new  springs  of  beauty  in  the  literatures  of  for 
eign  tongues.  The  fact  that  this  mission  was  interpretive, 
rather  than  creative,  hardly  detracts  from  Longfellow's  true 
originality.  It  merely  indicates  that  his  inspiration  came  to 
him  in  the  first  instance  from  other  sources  than  the  common 
life  about  him.  He  naturally  began  as  a  translator,  and  this 
first  volume  contained,  among  other  things,  exquisite  render 
ings  from  the  German  of  Uhland,  Salis,  and  Miiller,  from  the 
Danish,  French,  Spanish,  and  Anglo-Saxon,  and  a  few  pas 
sages  from  Dante.  Longfellow  remained  all  his  life  a  trans 
lator,  and  in  subtler  ways  than  by  direct  translation  he  infused 
the  fine  essence  of  European  poetry  into  his  own.  He  loved 

"  Tales  that  have  the  rime  of  age 
And  chronicles  of  eld." 

The  golden  light  of  romance  is  shed  upon  his  page,  and  it  is 
his  habit  to  borrow  mediaeval  and  Catholic  imagery  from  his 


126  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

favorite  Middle  Ages,  even  when  writing  of  American 
subjects.  To  him  the  clouds  are  hooded  friars,  that 
"tell  their  beads  in  drops  of  rain;"  the  midnight  winds 
blowing  through  woods  and  mountain  passes  are  chanting 
solemn  masses  for  the  repose  of  the  dying  year,  and  the 
strain  ends  with  the  prayer — 

"  Kyrie,  eleyson, 
Christe,  eleyson." 

In  his  journal  he  wrote  characteristically:  "The  black  shad 
ows  lie  upon  the  grass  like  engravings  in  a  book.  Autumn 
has  written  his  rubric  on  the  illuminated  leaves,  the  wind 
turns  them  over  and  chants  like  a  friar."  This  in  Cambridge, 
of  a  moonshiny  night,  on  the  first  day  of  the  American  Octo 
ber  !  But  several  of  the  pieces  in  Voices  of  the  Night  sprang 
more  immediately  from  the  poet's  own  inner  experience. 
The  Hymn  to  the  Night ,  the  Psalm  of  Life,  The  Reaper  and 
the  Flowers,  Footsteps  of  Angels,  TJie  Light  of  Stars,  and  The 
Beleaguered  City  spoke  of  love,  bereavement,  comfort,  pa 
tience,  and  faith.  In  these  lovely  songs,  and  in  many  others 
of  the  same  kind  which  he  afterward  wrote,  Longfellow 
touched  the  hearts  of  all  his  countrymen.  America  is  a 
country  of  homes,  and  Longfellow,  as  the  poet  of  sentiment 
and  of  the  domestic  affections,  became  and  remains  far  more 
general  in  his  appeal  than  such  a  "  cosmic  "  singer  as  Whit 
man,  who  is  still  practically  unknown  to  the  "  fierce  democ 
racy  "  to  which  he  has  addressed  himself.  It  would  be  hard 
to  overestimate  the  influence  for  good  exerted  by  the  tender 
feeling  and  the  pure  and  sweet  morality  which  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  copies  of  Longfellow's  writings,  that  have 
been  circulated  among  readers  of  all  classes  in  America  and 
England,  have  brought  with  them. 

Three  later  collections,  Ballads  and  Other  Poems,  1842; 
The  Belfry  of  Bruges,  1846 ;  and  The  Seaside  and  the  Fireside, 
1850,  comprise  most  of  what  is  noteworthy  in  Longfellow's 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS.  127 

minor  poetry.  The  first  of  these  embraced,  together  with 
some  renderings  from  the  German  and  the  Scandinavian  lan 
guages,  specimens  of  stronger  original  work  than  the  author 
had  yet  put  forth;  namely,  the  two  powerful  ballads  of  The 
Skeleton  in  Armor  and  The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus.  The 
former  of  these,  written  in  the  swift  leaping  meter  of  Dray- 
ton's  Ode  to  the  Cambro  Britons  on  their  Harp,  was  sug 
gested  by  the  digging  up  of  a  mail-clad  skeleton  at  Fall 
River — a  circumstance  which  the  poet  linked  with  the  tradi 
tions  about  the  Round  Tower  at  Newport,  thus  giving  to  the 
whole  the  spirit  of  a  Norse  viking  song  of  war  and  ^f  the 
sea.  The  Wreck  o'f  the  Ilesp'rus  was  occasioned  by  the 
news  of  shipwrecks  on  the  coast  near  Gloucester  and  by  the 
name  of  a  reef — "Norman's  Woe" — where  many  of  them 
took  place.  It  was  written  one  night  between  twelve  and 
three,  and  cost  the  poet,  he  said,  "  hardly  an  effort."  Indeed, 
it  is  the  spontaneous  ease  and  grace,  the  unfailing  taste  of 
Longfellow's  lines,  which  are  their  best  technical  quality. 
There  is  nothing  obscure  or  esoteric  about  his  poetry.  If 
there  is  little  passion  or  intellectual  depth,  there  is  always 
genuine  poetic  feeling,  often  a  very  high  order  of  imagina 
tion,  and  almost  invariably  the  choice  of  the  right  word.  In 
this  volume  were  also  included  The  Village  Blacksmith  and 
Excelsior.  The  latter,  and  .the  Psalm  of  Life,  have  had  a 
"  damnable  iteration  "  which  causes  them  to  figure  as  Long 
fellow's  most  popular  pieces.  They  are  by  no  means,  however, 
among  his  best.  They  are  vigorously  expressed  common 
places  of  that  hortatory  kind  which  passes  for  poetry,  but  is, 
in  reality,  a  vague  species  of  preaching. 

In  The  Belfry  of  Bruges  and  The  Seaside  and  the  Fireside 
the  translations  were  still  kept  up,  and  among  the  original 
pieces  were  The  Occupation  of  Orion — the  most  imaginative 
of  all  Longfellow's  poems;  Seaweed,  which  has  very  noble 
stanzas,  the  favorite  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,  The  Building 
of  the  Ship,  with  its  magnificent  closing  apostrophe  to  the 


128  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Union,  and  The  Fire  of  Driftwood,  the  subtlest  in  feeling  of 
any  thing  that  the  poet  ever  wrote.  With  these  were  verses 
of  a  more  familiar  quality,  such  as  The  Bridge,  Resignation, 
and  The  Day  Is  Done,  and  many  others,  all  reflecting  moods 
of  gentle  and  pensive  sentiment,  and  drawing  from  analo 
gies  in  nature  or  in  legend  lessons  which,  if  somewhat  ob 
vious,  were  expressed  with  perfect  art.  Like  Keats,  he  ap 
prehended  every  thing  on  its  beautiful  side.  Longfellow 
was  all  poet.  Like  Ophelia  in  Hamlet, 

"  Thought  and  affection,  passion,  hell  itself, 
He  turns  to  favor  and  to  prettiness." 

He  cared  very  little  about  the  intellectual  movement  of  the 
age.  The  transcendental  ideas  of  Emerson  passed  over  his 
head  and  left  him  undisturbed.  For  politics  he  had  that 
gentlemanly  distaste  which  the  cultivated  class  in  America 
had  already  begun  to  entertain.  In  1842  he  printed  a  small 
volume  of  Poems  on  Slavery,  which  drew  commendation  from 
his  friend  Sumner,  but  had  nothing  of  the  fervor  of  Whit- 
tier's  or  Lowell's  utterances  on  the  same  subject.  It  is  inter 
esting  to  compare  his  journals  with  Hawthorne's  American 
Note  Books,  and  to  observe  in  what  very  different  ways  the 
two  writers  made  prey  of  their  daily  experiences  for  literary 
material.  A  favorite  haunt  of  Longfellow's  was  the  bridge 
between  Boston  and  Cambridgeport,  the  same  which  he  put 
into  verse  in  his  poem,  The  Bridge.  "  I  always  stop  on  the 
bridge,"  he  writes  in  his  journal;  "tide  waters  are  beautiful. 
From  the  ocean  up  into  the  land  they  go,  like  messengers,  to 
ask  why  the  tribute  has  not  been  paid.  The  brooks  and 
rivers  answer  that  there  has  been  little  harvest  of  snow  and 
rain  this  year.  Floating  sea- weed  and  kelp  is  carried  up  into 
the  meadows,  as  returning  sailors  bring  oranges  in  bandanna 
handkerchiefs  to  friends  in  the  country."  And  again:  "We 
leaned  for  a  while  on  the  wooden  rail  and  enjoyed  the  silvery 
reflection  on  the  sea,  making  sundry  comparisons.  Among 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS.  129 

other  thoughts  we  had  this  cheering  one,  that  the  whole  sea 
was  flashing  with  this  heavenly  light,  though  we  saw  it  only 
in  a  single  track;  the  dark  waves  are  the  dark  providences 
of  God;  luminous,  though  not  to  us;  and  even  to  ourselves 
in  another  position."  "Walk  on  the  bridge,  both  ends  of 
which  are  lost  in  the  fog,  like  human  life  midway  between 
two  eternities;  beginning  and  ending  in  mist."  In  Haw 
thorne  an  allegoric  meaning  is  usually  something  deeper  and 
subtler  than  this,  and  seldom  so  openly  expressed.  Many  of 
Longfellow's  poems — the  Beleaguered  City,  for  example — 
may  be  definitely  divided  into  two  parts;  in  the  first,  a  story 
is  told  or  a  natural  phenomenon  described;  in  the  second, 
the  spiritual  application  of  the  parable  is  formally  set  forth. 
This  method  became  with  him  almost  a  trick  of  style,  and 
his  readers  learn  to  look  for  the  hcec  fabula  docet  at  the 
end  as  a  matter  of  course.  As  for  the  prevailing  optimism 
in  Longfellow's  view  of  life — of  which  the  above  passage  is 
an  instance — it  seems  to  be  in  him  an  affair  of  temperament, 
and  not,  as  in  Emerson,  the  result  of  philosophic  insight.  Per 
haps,  however,  in  the  last  analysis  optimism  and  pessimism 
are  subjective — the  expression  of  temperament  or  individual 
experience,  since  the  facts  of  life  are  the  same,  whether  seen 
through  Schopenhauer's  eyes  or  through  Emerson's.  If  there 
is  any  particular  in  which  Longfellow's  inspiration  came  to 
him  at  first  hand  and  not  through  books,  it  is  in  respect  to 
the  aspects  of  the  sea.  On  this  theme  no  American  poet  has 
written  more  beautifully  and  with  a  keener  sympathy  than  the 
author  of  The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus  and  of  Seaweed. 

In  1847  was  published  the  long  poem  of  Evangeline. 
The  story  of  the  Acadian  peasant  girl,  who  was  separated 
from  her  lover  in  the  dispersion  of  her  people  by  the  English 
troops,  and  after  weary  wanderings  and  a  life-long  search, 
found  him  at  last,  an  old  man  dying  in  a  Philadelphia  hos 
pital,  was  told  to  Longfellow  by  the  Rev.  H.  L.  Conolly,  who 
had  previously  suggested  it  to  Hawthorne  as  a  subject  for  a 
9 


130  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

story.  Longfellow,  characteristically  enough,  "  got  up  "  the 
local  color  for  his  poem  from  Haliburton's  account  of  the 
dispersion  of  the  Grand-Pre  Acadians,  from  Darby's  Geo 
graphical  Description  of  Louisiana  and  Watson's  Annals  of 
Philadelphia.  He  never  needed  to  go  much  outside  of  his 
library  for  literary  impulse  and  material.  Whatever  may  be 
held  as  to  Longfellow's  inventive  powers  as  a  creator  of  char 
acters  or  an  interpreter  of  American  life,  his  originality  as  an 
artist  is  manifested  by  his  successful  domestication  in  Evan- 
geline  of  the  dactylic  hexameter,  which  no  English  poet  had 
yet  used  with  effect.  The  English  poet,  Arthur  Hugh 
Clough,  who  lived  for  a  time  in  Cambridge,  followed  Long 
fellow's  example  in  the  use  of  hexameter  in  his  JBothie  of 
Tober-na-  Vuolich,  so  that  we  have  now  arrived  at  the  time 
— a  proud  moment  for  American  letters — when  the  works  of 
our  writers  began  to  react  upon  the  literature  of  Europe. 
But  the  beauty  of  the  descriptions  in  Evangeline  and  the 
pathos — somewhat  too  drawn  out — of  the  story  made  it 
dear  to  a  multitude  of  readers  who  cared  nothing  about  the 
technical  disputes  of  Poe  and  other  critics  as  to  whether 
or  not  Longfellow's  lines  were  sufficiently  " spondaic"  to 
represent  truthfully  the  quantitative  hexameters  of  Homer 
and  Vergil. 

In  1855  appeared  Hiawatha,  Longfellow's  most  aboriginal 
and  "  American  "  book.  The  tripping  trochaic  measure  he 
borrowed  from  the  Finnish  epic  Jfalevala.  The  vague, 
child-like  mythology  of  the  Indian  tribes,  with  its  anthropo 
morphic  sense  of  the  brotherhood  between  men,  animals,  and 
the  forms  of  inanimate  nature,  he  took  from  Schoolcraft's 
Algic  Researches,  1839.  He  fixed  forever,  in  a  skillfully 
chosen  poetic  form,  the  more  inward  and  imaginative  part  of 
Indian  character,  as  Cooper  had  given  permanence  to  its  ex 
ternal  and  active  side.  Of  Longfellow's  dramatic  experi 
ments,  the  Golden  Legend,  1851,  alone  deserves  mention 
here.  This  was  in  his  chosen  realm;  a  tale  taken  from  the 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS.  131 

ecclesiastical  annals  of  the  Middle  Ages,  precious  with  mar 
tyrs'  blood  and  bathed  in  the  rich  twilight  of  the  cloister. 
It  contains  some  of  his  best  work,  but  its  merit  is  rather 
poetic  than  dramatic,  although  Ruskin  praised  it  for  the 
closeness  with  which  it  entered  into  the  temper  of  the 
monk. 

Longfellow  has  pleased  the  people  more  than  the  critics. 
lie  gave  freely  what  he  had,  and  the  gift  was  beautiful. 
Those  who  have  looked  in  his  poetry  for  something  else  than 
poetry,  or  for  poetry  of  some  other  kind,  have  not  been  slow 
to  assert  that  he  was  a  lady's  poet — one  who  satisfied  callow 
youths  and  school-girls  by  uttering  commonplaces  in  grace 
ful  and  musical  shape,  but  who  offered  no  strong  meat  for 
men.  Miss  Fuller  called  his  poetry  thin,  and  the  poet  him 
self — or,  rather,  a  portrait  of  the  poet  which  frontispieced 
an  illustrated  edition  of  his  works — a  "  dandy  Pindar." 
This  is  not  true  of  his  poetry,  or  of  the  best  of  it.  But 
he  had  a  singing  and  not  a  talking  voice,  and  in  his  prose 
one  becomes  sensible  of  a  certain  weakness.  Hyperion, 
for  example,  published  in  1839,  a  loitering  fiction,  inter 
spersed  with  descriptions  of  European  travel,  is,  upon  the 
whole,  a  weak  book,  overflowery  in  diction  and  sentimental 
in  tone. 

The  crown  of  Longfellow's  achievements  as  a  translator 
was  his  great  version  of  Dante's  Divina  Commedia,  published 
between  1867  and  1870.  It  is  a  severely  literal,  almost  a  line 
for  line,  rendering.  The  meter  is  preserved,  but  the  rhyme 
sacrificed.  If  not  the  best  English  poem  constructed  from 
Dante,  it  is  at  all  events  the  most  faithful  and  scholarly  para 
phrase.  The  sonnets  which  accompanied  it  are  among  Long 
fellow's  best  work.  He  seems  to  have  been  raised  by  daily 
communion  with  the  great  Tuscan  into  a  habit  of  deeper 
and  more  subtle  thought  than  is  elsewhere  common  in  his 
poetry. 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes   (1809-    )   is  a  native  of  Cam- 


132  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

bridge  and  a  graduate  of  Harvard  in  the  class  of  '29;  a  class 
whose  anniversary  reunions  he  has  celebrated  in  something 
like  forty  distinct  poems  and  songs.  For  sheer  cleverness 
and  versatility  Dr.  Holmes  is,  perhaps,  unrivaled  among 
American  men  of  letters.  He  has  been  poet,  wit,  humorist, 
novelist,  essayist,  and  a  college  lecturer  and  writer  on  medical 
topics.  In  all  of  these  departments  he  has  produced  work 
which  ranks  high,  if  not  with  the  highest.  His  father,  Dr. 
Abiel  Holmes,  was  a  graduate  of  Yale  and  an  orthodox  min 
ister  of  liberal  temper,  but  the  son  early  threw  in  his  lot  with 
the  Unitarians;  and,  as  was  natural  to  a  man  of  satiric  turn 
and  with  a  very  human  enjoyment  of  a  fight,  whose  youth 
was  cast  in  an  age  of .  theological  controversy,  he  has  always 
had  his  fling  at  Calvinism,  and  has  prolonged  the  slogans  of 
old  battles  into  a  later  generation;  sometimes,  perhaps,  in 
sisting  upon  them  rather  wearisomely  and  beyond  the  limits 
of  good  taste.  He  had,  even  as  an  undergraduate,  a  reputation 
for  cleverness  at  writing  comic  verses,  and  many  of  his  good 
things  in  this  kind,  such  as  the  Dorchester  Giant  and  the 
Height  of  the  Ridiculous,  were  contributed  to  the  Collegian, 
a  students'  paper.  But  he  first  drew  the  attention  of  a  wider 
public  by  his  spirited  ballad  of  Old  Ironsides — 

"  Ay  !  Tear  her  tattered  ensign  downl  " — 

composed  about  1830,  when  it  was  proposed  by  the  govern 
ment  to  take  to  pieces  the  unseaworthy  hulk  of  the  famous 
old  man-of-war,  Constitution.  Holmes's  indignant  protest 
— which  has  been  a  favorite  subject  for  school-boy  declama 
tion — had  the  effect  of  postponing  the  vessel's  fate  for  a 
great  many  years.  From  1830-35  the  young  poet  was  pur 
suing  his  medical  studies  in  Boston  and  Paris,  contributing 
now  and  then  some  verses  to  the  magazines.  Of  his  life  as  a 
medical  student  in  Paris  there  are  many  pleasant  reminis 
cences  in  his  Autocrat  and  other  writings,  as  where  he  tells, 
for  instance,  of  a  dinner-party  of  Americans  in  the  French 


THE  CAMBRIDGE   SCHOLARS.  133 

capital,  where  one  of  the  company  brought  tears  of  home 
sickness  into  the  eyes  of  his  sodales  by  saying  that  the  tinkle 
of  the  ice  hi  the  champagne-glasses  reminded  him  of  the 
cow-bells  in  the  rocky  old  pastures  of  New  England.  In  1836 
he  printed  his  first  collection  of  poems.  The  volume  contained, 
among  a  number  of  pieces  broadly  comic,  like  the  September 
Gale,  the  Music  Grinders,  and  the  Ballad  of  the  Oysterman 
— which  at  once  became  widely  popular — a  few  poems  of  a 
finer  and  quieter  temper,  in  which  there  was  a  quaint  blend 
ing  of  the  humorous  and  the  pathetic.  Such  were  My  Aunt 
and  the  Last  Leaf—  which  Abraham  Lincoln  found  "  inex 
pressibly  touching,"  and  which  it  is  difficult  to  read  without 
the  double  tribute  of  a  smile  and  a  tear.  The  volume  con 
tained  also  Poetry  :  A  Metrical  Essay,  read  before  the  Har 
vard  Chapter  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society,  which  was  the 
first  of  that  long  line  of  capital  occasional  poems  which 
Holmes  has  been  spinning  for  half  a  century  with  no  sign  of 
fatigue  and  with  scarcely  any  falling  off  in  freshness;  poems 
read  or  spoken  or  sung  at  all  manner  of  gatherings,  public 
and  private,  at  Harvard  commencements,  class  days,  and 
other  academic  anniversaries;  at  inaugurations,  centennials, 
dedications  of  cemeteries,  meetings  of  medical  associations, 
mercantile  libraries,  Burns  clubs,  and  New  England  societies; 
at  rural  festivals  and  city  fairs;  openings  of  theaters,  layings 
of  corner-stones,  birthday  celebrations,  jubilees,  funerals, 
commemoration  services,  dinners  of  welcome  or  farewell  to 
Dickens,  Bryant,  Everett,  Whittier,  Longfellow,  Grant, 
Farragut,  the  Grand  Duke  Alexis,  the  Chinese  embassy,  and 
what  not.  Probably  no  poet  of  any  age  or  clime  has  written 
so  much  and  so  well  to  order.  He  has  been  particularly 
happy  in  verses  of  a  convivial  kind,  toasts  for  big  civic 
feasts,  or  post-prandial  rhymes  for  the  petit  comite — the  snug 
little  dinners  of  the  chosen  few;  his 

"  The  quaint  trick  to  cram  the  pithy  line 
That  cracks  so  crisply  over  bubbling  wine." 


134  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

And  although  he  could  write  on  occasion  a  Song  for  a 
Temperance  Dinner,  he  has  preferred  to  chant  the  praise  of 
the  punch  bowl  and  to 

"feel  the  old  convivial  glow  (unaided)  o'er  me  stealing, 
The  warm,  champagny,  old-particular-brandy-punchy  feeling." 

It  would  be  impossible  to  enumerate  the  many  good  things 
of  this  sort  which  Holmes  has  written,  full  of  wit  and  wis 
dom,  and  of  humor  lightly  dashed  with  sentiment  and 
sparkling  with  droll  analogies,  sudden  puns,  and  unexpected 
turns  of  rhyme  and  phrase.  Among  the  best  of  them  are 
Nux  Postcoenatica,  A  Modest  Request,  Ode  for  a  Social 
Meeting,  The  Boys,  and  Rip  Van  ~W inkle,  M.D.  Holmes's 
favorite  measure,  in  his  longer  poems,  is  the  heroic  couplet 
which  Pope's  example  seems  to  have  consecrated  forever  to 
satiric  and  didactic  verse.  He  writes  as  easily  in  this  meter 
as  if  it  were  prose,  and  with  much  of  Pope's  epigrammatic 
neatness.  He  also  manages  with  facility  the  anaprestics  of 
Moore  and  the  ballad  stanza  which  Hood  had  made  the  vehi 
cle  for  his  drolleries.  It  cannot  be  expected  that  verses 
manufactured  to  pop  with  the  corks  and  fizz  with  the  cham 
pagne  at  academic  banquets  should  much  outlive  the  occasion; 
or  that  the  habit  of  producing  such  verses  on  demand  should 
foster  in  the  producer  that  "  high  seriousness  "  which  Matthew 
Arnold  asserts  to  be  one  mark  of  all  great  poetry.  Holmes's 
poetry  is  mostly  on  the  colloquial  level,  excellent  society- 
verse,  but  even  in  its  serious  moments  too  smart  and  too 
pretty  to  be  taken  very  gravely;  with  a  certain  glitter, 
knowingness,  and  flippancy  about  it,  and  an  absence  of  that 
self-forgetfulness  and  intense  absorption  in  its  theme  which 
characterize  the  work  of  the  higher  imagination.  This  is 
rather  the  product  of  fancy  and  wit.  Wit,  indeed,  in  the 
old  sense  of  quickness  in  the  perception  of  analogies,  is  the 
staple  of  his  mind.  His  resources  in  the  way  of  figure,  illus 
tration,  allusion,  and  anecdote  are  wonderful.  Age  cannot 


THE  CAMBRIDGE   SCHOLARS.  135 

wither  him  nor  custom  stale  his  infinite  variety,  and  there  is 
as  much  powder  in  his  latest  pyrotechnics  as  in  the  rockets 
which  he  sent  up  half  a  century  ago.  Yet,  though  the  hu 
morist  in  him  rather  outweighs  the  poet,  he  has  written  a  few 
things,  like  the  Chambered  Nautilus  and  Homesick  in 
Heaven,  which  are  as  purely  and  deeply  poetic  as  the  One- 
Hoss  Shay  and  the  Prologue  are  funny.  Dr.  Holmes  is  not 
of  the  stuff  of  which  idealists  and  enthusiasts  are  made.  As 
a  physician  and  a  student  of  science,  the  facts  of  the  mate 
rial  universe  have  counted  for  much  with  him.  His  clear, 
positive,  alert  intellect  was  always  impatient  of  mysticism. 
He  had  the  sharp  eye  of  the  satirist  and  the  man  of  the 
world  for  oddities  of  dress,  dialect,  and  manners.  Natu 
rally  the  transcendental  movement  struck  him  on  its  ludicrous 
side,  and  in  his  After-Dinner  Poem,  read  at  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  dinner  at  Cambridge  in  1843,  he  had  his  laugh  at  the 
"Orphic  odes"  and  "runes"  of  the  bedlamite  seer  and 
bard  of  mystery 

"  Who  rides  a  beetle  which  he  calls  a  *  sphinx.' 

And  0  what  questions  asked  in  club-foot  rhyme 

Of  Earth  the  tongueless,  and  the  deaf-mute  Time! 

Here  babbling  '  Insight '  shouts  in  Nature's  ears 

His  last  conundrum  on  the  orbs  and  spheres ; 

There  Self-inspection  sucks  its  little  thumb, 

With  •  Whence  am  I ?  *  and  '  Wherefore  did  I  come? ' " 

Curiously  enough,  the  author  of  these  lines  lived  to  write 
an  appreciative  life  of  the  poet  who  wrote  the  Sphinx. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  toryism  or  social  conservatism 
in  Holmes.  He  acknowledged  a  preference  for  the  man 
with  a  pedigree,  the  man  who  owned  family  portraits, 
had  been  brought  up  in  familiarity  with  books,  and 
could  pronounce  "  view "  correctly.  Readers  unhappily 
not  of  the  "  Brahmin  caste  of  New  England "  have 
sometimes  resented  as  snobbishness  Holmes's  harping  on 
"  family,"  and  his  perpetual  application  of  certain  favorite 


136  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

shibboleths  to  other  people's  ways  of  speech     "  The  woman 
who  calculates  is  lost." 

"  Learning  condemns  beyond  the  reach  of  hope 

The  careless  lips  that  speak  of  soap  for  sOap.  .  .  . 

Do  put  your  accents  in  the  proper  spot : 

Don't,  let  me  beg  you,  don't  say  *  How? '  for  '  What  f » 

The  things  named  '  pants '  in  certain  documents, 

A  word  not  made  for  gentlemen,  but  'gents.' w 

With  the  rest  of  "  society "  he  was  disposed  to  ridicule 
the  abolition  movement  as  a  crotchet  of  the  eccentric  and 
the  long-haired.  But  when  the  civil  war  broke  out  he  lent 
his  pen,  his  tongue,  and  his  own  flesh  and  blood  to  the  cause 
of  the  Union.  The  individuality  of  Holmes's  writings  comes 
in  part  from  their  local  and  provincial  bias.  He  has  been 
the  laureate  of  Harvard  College  and  the  bard  of  Boston  city, 
an  urban  poet,  with  a  cockneyish  fondness  for  old  Boston 
ways  and  things — the  Common  and  the  Frog  Pond,  Faneuil 
Hall  and  King's  Chapel  and  the  Old  South,  Bunker  Hill, 
Long  Wharf,  the  Tea  Party,  and  the  town  crier.  It  was 
Holmes  who  invented  the  playful  saying  that  "  Boston  State- 
house  is  the  hub  of  the  solar  system." 

In  1857  was  started  the  Atlantic  Monthly ,  a  magazine 
which  has  published  a  good  share  of^the  best  work  done  by 
American  writers  within  the  past  generation.  Its  immedi 
ate  success  was  assured  by  Dr.  Holmes's  brilliant  series  of 
papers,  the  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,  1858,  followed 
at  once  by  the  Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  1859,  and 
later  by  the  Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  1873.  The  Auto 
crat  is  its  author's  masterpiece,  and  holds  the  fine  quintes 
sence  of  his  humor,  his  scholarship,  his  satire,  genial  ob 
servation,  and  ripe  experience  of  men  and  cities.  The  form 
is  as  unique  and  original  as  the  contents,  being  something 
between  an  essay  and  a  drama;  a  succession  of  monologues 
or  table-talks  at  a  typical  American  boarding-house,  with  a 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS.  137 

thread  of  story  running  through  the  whole.  The  variety  of 
mood  and  thought  is  so  great  that  these  conversations  never 
tire,  and  the  prose  is  interspersed  with  some  of  the  author's 
choicest  verse.  The  Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table  fol 
lowed  too  closely  on  the  heels  of  the  Autocrat,  and  had  less 
freshness.  The  third  number  of  the  series  was  better,  and 
was  pleasantly  reminiscent  and  slightly  garrulous,  Dr. 
Holmes  being  now  (1873)  sixty -four  years  old,  and  entitled 
to  the  gossiping  privilege  of  age.  The  personnel  of  the 
Breakfast  Table  series,  such  as  the  landlady  and  the  landlady's 
daughter  and  her  son,  Benjamin  Franklin;  the  schoolmistress 
the  young  man  named  John,  the  Divinity  Student,  the  Kohi- 
noor,  the  Sculpin,  the  Scarabseus,  and  the  Old  Gentleman  who 
sits  opposite,  are  not  fully  drawn  characters,  but  outlined 
figures,  lightly  sketched — as  is  the  Autocrat's  wont — by 
means  of  some  trick  of  speech,  or  dress,  or  feature,  but  they 
are  quite  life-like  enough  for  their  purpose,  which  is  mainly 
to  furnish  listeners  and  foils  to  the  eloquence  and  wit  of  the 
chief  talker. 

In  1860  and  1867  Holmes  entered  the  field  of  fiction  with 
two  "medicated  novels,"  Elsie  Venner  and  the  Guardian 
Angel.  The  first  of  these  was  a  singular  tale,  whose  heroine 
united  with  her  very  fascinating  human  attributes  some 
thing  of  the  nature  of  a  serpent;  her  mother  having  been 
bitten  by  a  rattlesnake  a  few  months  before  the  birth  of  the 
girl,  and  kept  alive  meanwhile  by  the  use  of  powerful  anti 
dotes.  The  heroine  of  the  Guardian  Angel  inherited  law 
less  instincts  from  a  vein  of  Indian  blood  in  her  ancestry. 
These  two  books  were  studies  of  certain  medico-psycholog 
ical  problems.  They  preached  Dr.  Holmes's  favorite  doc 
trines  of  heredity  and  of  the  modified  nature  of  moral  re 
sponsibility  by  reason  of  transmitted  tendencies  which  limit 
the  freedom  of  the  will.  In  Msie  Venner,  in  particular,  the 
weirdly  imaginative  and  speculative  character  of  the  lead 
ing  motive  suggests  Hawthorne's  method  in  fiction,  but  the 


138  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

background  and  the  subsidiary  figures  have  a  realism  that  is 
in  abrupt  contrast  with  this,  and  gives  a  kind  of  doubleness 
and  want  of  keeping  to  the  whole.  The  Yankee  characters, 
in  particular,  and  the  satirical  pictures  of  New  England 
country  life  are  open  to  the  charge  of  caricature.  In  the 
Guardian  Angel  the  figure  of  Byles  Gridley,  the  old  scholar, 
is  drawn  with  thorough  sympathy,  and  though  some  of  his 
acts  are  improbable,  he  is,  on  the  whole,  Holmes's  most  vital 
conception  in  the  region  of  dramatic  creation. 

James  Russell  Lowell  (1819-  ),  the  foremost  of  American 
critics  and  of  living  American  poets,  is,  like  Holmes,  a  native 
of  Cambridge,  and,  like  Emerson  and  Holmes,  a  clergyman's 
son.  In  1855  he  succeeded  Longfellow  as  professor  of  mod 
ern  languages  in  Harvard  College.  Of  late  years  he  has 
held  important  diplomatic  posts,  like  Everett,  Irving,  Ban 
croft,  Motley,  and  other  Americans  distinguished  in  letters, 
having  been  United  States  minister  to  Spain,  and,  under  two 
administrations,  to  the  court  of  St.  James.  Lowell  is  not  so 
spontaneously  and  exclusively  a  poet  as  Longfellow,  and  his 
popularity  with  the  average  reader  has  never  been  so  great. 
His  appeal  has  been  to  the  few  rather  than  the  many,  to  an 
audience  of  scholars  and  of  the  judicious  rather  than  to  the 
"  groundlings  "  of  the  general  public.  Nevertheless  his  verse, 
though  without  the  evenness,  instinctive  grace,  and  unerring 
good  taste  of  Longfellow's,  has  more  energy  and  a  stronger 
intellectual  fiber,  while  in  prose  he  is  very  greatly  the  su 
perior.  His  first  volume,  A  Year's  Life,  1841,  gave  some 
promise.  In  1843  he  started  a  magazine,  the  Pioneer,  which 
only  reached  its  third  number,  though  it  counted  among  its 
contributors  Hawthorne,  Poe,  Whittier,  and  Miss  Barrett 
(afterward  Mrs.  Browning).  A  second  volume  of  poems, 
printed  in  1844,  showed  a  distinct  advance,  in  such  pieces  as 
the  Shepherd  of  King  Admetus,  Rhcecus,  a  classical  myth, 
told  in  excellent  blank  verse,  and  the  same  in  subject  with 
one  of  Landor's  polished  intaglios;  and  the  Legend  of  Brit- 


THE  CAMBRIDGE   SCHOLARS.  139 

tany,  a  narrative  poem,  which  had  fine  passages,  but  no 
firmness  in  the  management  of  the  story.  As  yet,  it  was  ev 
ident,  the  young  poet  had  not  found  his  theme.  This  came 
with  the  outbreak  of  the  Mexican  War,  which  was  unpopular 
in  New  England,  and  which  the  Free  Soil  party  regarded  as 
a  slave-holders'  war  waged  without  provocation  against  a 
sister  republic,  and  simply  for  the  purpose  of  extending  the 
area  of  slavery. 

In  1846,  accordingly,  the  Biglow  Papers  began  to  appear 
in  the  Boston  Courier,  and  were  collected  and  published  in 
book  form  in  1848.  These  were  a  series  of  rhymed  satires 
upon  the  government  and  the  war  party,  written  in  the  Yan 
kee  dialect,  and  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  Hosea  Biglow,  a 
home-spun  genius  in  a  down-east  country  town,  whose  letters 
to  the  editor  were  indorsed  and  accompanied  by  the  com 
ments  of  the  Rev.  Homer  Wilbur,  A.M.,  pastor  of  the  First 
Church  in  Jaalam,  and  (prospective)  member  of  many  learned 
societies.  The  first  paper  was  a  derisive  address  to  a  recruit 
ing  sergeant,  with  a  denunciation  of  the  "nigger-drivin' 
States A  and  the  "  Northern  dough-faces ;  "  a  plain  hint  that 
the  North  would  do  better  to  secede  than  to  continue 
doing  dirty  work  for  the  South;  and  an  expression  of 
those  universal  peace  doctrines  which  were  then  in  the 
air,  and  to  which  Longfellow  gave  serious  utterance  in 
his  Occultation  of  Orion. 

"  Ez  for  war,  I  call  it  murder — 

There  you  hev  it  plain  an'  fiat: 
I  don't  want  to  go  no  furder 

Than  my  Testyment  for  that ; 
God  hez  said  so  plump  an'  fairly, 

It's  as  long  as  it  is  broad, 
An'  you've  gut  to  git  up  airly 

Ef  you  want  to  take  in  God." 

The  second  number  was  a  versified  paraphrase  of  a  letter  re 
ceived  from  Mr.  Birdofredom  Sawin,  "  a  yung  feller  of  our 


140  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

town  that  was  cussed  fool  enuff  to  goe  atrottin  inter  Miss 
Chiff  arter  a  drum  and  fife,"  and  who  finds  when  he  gets  to 
Mexico  that 

"  This  kind  o1  sogerin'  aint  a  mite  like  our  October  trainin'." 

Of  the  subsequent  papers  the  best  was,  perhaps,  What  Mr. 
Robinson  Thinks,  an  election  ballad,  which  caused  universal 
laughter,  and  was  on  every  body's  tongue. 

The  Biglow  Papers  remain  Lowell's  most  original  contri 
bution  to  American  literature.  They  are,  all  in  all,  the  best 
political  satires  in  the  language,  and  unequaled  as  portraitures 
of  the  Yankee  character,  with  its  cuteness,  its  homely  wit, 
and  its  latent  poetry.  Under  the  racy  humor  of  the  dialect 
— which  became  in  Lowell's  hands  a  medium  of  literary  ex 
pression  almost  as  effective  as  Burns's  Ayrshire  Scotch — 
burned  that  moral  jnthusiasm  and  that  hatred  of  wrong  and 
deification  of  duty — "  Stern  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God  " 
— which,  in  the  tough  New  England  stock,  stands  instead  of 
the  passion  in  the  blood  of  southern  races.  Lowell's  serious 
poems  on  political  questions,  such  as  the  Present  Crisis,  Ode 
to  Freedom,  and  the  Capture  of  Fugitive  Slaves,  have  the  old 
Puritan  fervor,  and  such  lines  as 

"They  are  slaves  who  dare  not  be 
In  the  right  with  two  or  three," 

and  the  passage  beginning 

"Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold,  "Wrong  forever  on  the  throne," 

became  watchwords  in  the  struggle  against  slavery  and  dis 
union.  Some  of  these  were  published  in  his  volume  of  1848 
and  the  collected  edition  of  his  poems,  in  two  volumes,  issued 
in  1850.  These  also  included  his  most  ambitious  narrative 
poem,  the  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,  an  allegorical  and  spiritual 
treatment  of  one  of  the  legends  of  the  Holy  Grail.  Lowell's 


THE  CAMBRIDGE   SCHOLARS.  141 

genius  was  not  epical,  but  lyric  and  didactic.  The  merit 
of  Si?'  Launfal  is  not  in  the  telling  of  the  story,  but  in 
the  beautiful  descriptive  episodes,  one  of  which,  com 
mencing, 

"  And  what  is  so  rare  as  a  day  in  June? 
Then  if  ever  come  perfect  days," 

is  as  current  as  any  thing  that  he  has  written.  It  is  signifi 
cant  of  the  lack  of  a  natural  impulse  toward  narrative  inven 
tion  in  Lowell  that,  unlike  Longfellow  and  Holmes,  he  never 
tried  his  hand  at  a  novel.  One  of  the  most  important  parts 
of  a  novelist's  equipment  he  certainly  possesses,  namely, 
an  insight  into  character  and  an  ability  to  delineate  it. 
This  gift  is  seen  especially  in  his  sketch  of  Parson  Wilbur, 
who  edited  the  lit  glow  Papers  with  a  delightfully  pedantic 
introduction,  glossary,  and  notes;  in  the  prose  essay  On  a 
Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners,  and  in  the  uncom 
pleted  poem,  Fitz  Adam's  Story.  See  also  the  sketch  of 
Captain  Underhill  in  the  essay  on  New  England  Two  Cent 
uries  Ago. 

The  Biglow  Papers  when  brought  out  in  a  volume  were 
prefaced  by  imaginary  notices  of  the  press,  including  a  capi 
tal  parody  of  Carlyle,  and  a  reprint  from  the  "  Jaalam  Inde 
pendent  Blunderbuss,"  of  the  first  sketch — afterward  ampli 
fied  and  enriched — of  that  perfect  Yankee  idyl,  The  Court  in*. 
Between  1862  and  1865  a  second  series  of  Biglow  Papers 
appeared,  called  out  by  the  events  of  the  civil  war.  Some 
of  these,  as,  for  instance,  Jonathan  to  John,  a  remon 
strance  with  England  for  her  unfriendly  attitude  toward  the 
North,  were  not  inferior  to  any  thing  in  the  earlier  series; 
and  others  were  even  superior  as  poems,  equal,  indeed,  in 
pathos  and  intensity  to  any  thing  that  Lowell  has  written 
in  his  professedly  serious  verse.  In  such  passages  the 
dialect  wears  rather  thin,  and  there  is  a  certain  incongru 
ity  between  the  rustic  spelling  and  the  vivid  beauty  and 


142  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

power  and  the  figurative  cast  of  the  phrase  in  stanzas 
like  the  following: 

"  Wut's  words  to  them  whose  faith  an'  truth 

On  war's  red  techstorie  rang  true  metal, 
Who  ventered  life  an'  love  an'  youth 

For  the  gret  prize  o'  death  in  battle? 
To  him  who,  deadly  hurt,  agen 

Flashed  on  afore  the  charge's  thunder, 
Tippin'  with  fire  the  "bolt  of  men 

That  rived  the  rebel  line  asunder  ?  " 

Charles  Sumner,  a  somewhat  heavy  person,  with  little  sense 
of  humor,  wished  that  the  author  of  the  Biglow  Papers 
"could  have  used  good  English."  In  the  lines  just  quoted, 
indeed,  the  bad  English  adds  nothing  to  the  effect.  In  1848 
Lowell  wrote  A  Fable  for  Critics,  something  after  the  style 
of  Sir  John  Suckling's  Session  of  the  Poets'  a  piece  of  rollick 
ing  doggerel  in  which  he  surveyed  the  American  Parnassus, 
scattering  about  headlong  fun,  sharp  satire,  and  sound  crit 
icism  in  equal  proportion.  Never  an  industrious  workman, 
like  Longfellow,  at  the  poetic  craft,  but  preferring  to  wait 
for  the  mood  to  seize  him,  he  allowed  eighteen  years  to  go 
by,  from  1850  to  1868,  before  publishing  another  volume  of 
verse.  In  the  latter  year  appeared  Under  the  Willows,  which 
contains  some  of  his  ripest  and  most  perfect  work,  notably 
A  Winter  Evening  Hymn  to  my  Fire,  with  its  noble  and 
touching  close — suggested  by,  perhaps,  at  any  rate  recalling, 
the  dedication  of  Goethe's  Faust, 

"  Ihr  naht  euch  wieder,  schwankende  Gestalten ;  " 

the  subtle  Footpath  and  In  the  Twilight,  the  lovely  little 
poems  Auf  Wiedersehen  and  After  the  Funeral,  and  a  num 
ber  of  spirited  political  pieces,  such  as  Villa  Franca  and  the 
Washers  of  the  8hroud.  This  volume  contained  also  his  Ode 
Recited  at  the  Harvard  Commemoration  in  1865.  This, 


THE  CAMBRIDGE   SCHOLARS.  143 

although  uneven,  is  one  of  the  finest  occasional  poems  in  the 
language,  and  the  most  important  contribution  which  our 
civil  war  has  made  to  song.  It  was  charged  with  the  grave 
emotion  of  one  who  not  only  shared  the  patriotic  grief  and 
exultation  of  his  alma  mater  in  the  sacrifice  of  her  sons,  but 
who  felt  a  more  personal  sorrow  in  the  loss  of  kindred  of 
his  own,  fallen  in  the  front  of  battle.  Particularly  note 
worthy  in  this  memorial  ode  are  the  tribute  to  Abra 
ham  Lincoln,  the  third  strophe  beginning,  "Many  loved 
Truth;"  the  exordium,  "O  Beautiful!  my  Country!  ours 
once  more!  "  and  the  close  of  the  eighth  strophe,  where  the 
poet  chants  of  the  youthful  heroes  who 

"  Come  transfigured  back, 

Secure  from  change  in  their  high-hearted  ways. 
Beautiful  evermore  and  with  the  rays 
Of  morn  on  their  white  Shields  of  Expectation." 

From  1857  to  1862  Lowell  edited  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  and 
from  1863  to  1872  the  North  American  Review.  His  prose, 
beginning  with  an  early  volume  of  Conversations  on  Some 
of  the  Old  Poets,  1844,  has  consisted  mainly  of  critical  es 
says  on  individual  writers,  such  as  Dante,  Chaucer,  Spenser, 
Emerson,  Shakespeare,  Thoreau,  Pope,  Carlyle,  etc.,  together 
with  papers  of  a  more  miscellaneous  kind,  like  Witchcraft, 
New  England  Two  Centuries  Ago,  My  Garden  Acquaint 
ance,  A  Good  Word  for  Winter,  Abraham  Lincoln,  etc., 
etc.  Two  volumes  of  these  were  published  in  1870  and 
1876,  under  the  title  Among  My  Books,  and  another,  My 
Study  Windows,  in  1871.  As  a  literary  critic  Lowell  ranks 
easily  among  the  first  of  living  writers.  His  scholarship  is 
thorough,  his  judgment  keen,  and  he  pours  out  upon  his 
page  an  unwithholding  wealth  of  knowledge,  humor,  wit, 
and  imagination  from  'the  fullness  of  an  overflowing  mind. 
His  prose  has  not  the  chastened  correctness  and  "low  tone" 
of  Matthew  Arnold's.  It  is  rich,  exuberant,  and  sometimes 


144  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

overfanciful,  running  away  into  excesses  of  allusion  or  fol 
lowing  the  lead  of  a  chance  pun  so  as  sometimes  to  lay  itself 
open  to  the  charge  of  pedantry  and  bad  taste.  Lowell's  re 
sources  in  the  way  of  illustration  and  comparison  are  endless, 
and  the  readiness  of  his  wit  and  his  delight  in  using  it  put 
many  temptations  in  his  way.  Purists  in  style  accordingly 
take  offense  at  his  saying  that  "  Milton  is  the  only  man  who 
ever  got  much  poetry  out  of  a  cataract,  and  that  was  a  cat 
aract  in  his  eye;"  or  of  his  speaking  of  "a  gentleman  for 
whom  the  bottle  before  him  reversed  the  wonder  of  the 
stereoscope  and  substituted  the  Gascon  v  for  the  b  in  binocu 
lar,"  which  is  certainly  a  puzzling  and  roundabout  fashion 
of  telling  us  that  he  had  drunk  so  much  that  he  saw  double. 
The  critics  also  find  fault  with  his  coining  such  words  as 
"  undisprivacied,"  and  with  his  writing  such  lines  as  the  fa 
mous  one — from  The  Cathedral,  1870 — 

"  Spume-sliding  down  the  baffled  decuman." 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that  his  style  lacks  the  crowning 
grace  of  simplicity,  but  it  is  precisely  by  reason  of  its  allu 
sive  quality  that  scholarly  readers  take  pleasure  in  it.  They 
like  a  diction  that  has  stuff  in  it  and  is  woven  thick,  and 
where  a  thing  is  said  in  such  a  way  as  to  recall  many  other 
things. 

Mention  should  be  made,  in  connection  with  this  Cam 
bridge  circle,  of  one  writer  who  touched  its  circumference 
briefly.  This  was  Sylvester  Judd,  a  graduate  of  Yale,  who 
entered  the  Harvard  Divinity  School  in  1837,  and  in  1840 
became  minister  of  a  Unitarian  church  in  Augusta,  Maine. 
Judd  published  several  books,  but  the  only  one  of  them  at 
all  rememberable  was  Margaret,  1845,  a  novel  of  which 
Lowell  said,  in  A  Fable  for  Critics,  that  it  was  "  the  first 
Yankee  book  with  the  soul  of  Down  East  in  it."  It  was 
very  imperfect  in  point  of  art,  and  its  second  part — a  rhap 
sodical  description  of  a  sort  of  Unitarian  Utopia — is  quite 


THE  CAMBRIDGE   SCHOLARS.  145 

unreadable.  But  in  the  delineation  of  the  few  chief  charac 
ters  and  of  the  rude,  wild  life  of  an  outlying  New  England 
township  just  after  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  as 
well  as  in  the  tragic  power  of  the  catastrophe,  there  was 
genius  of  a  high  order. 

As  the  country  has  grown  older  and  more  populous,  and 
works  in  all  departments  of  thought  have  multiplied,  it  be 
comes  necessary  to  draw  more  strictly  the  line  between  the 
literature  of  knowledge  and  the  literature  of  power.  Polit 
ical  history,  in  and  of  itself,  scarcely  falls  within  the  limits 
of  this  sketch,  and  yet  it  cannot  be  altogether  dismissed,  for 
the  historian's  art,  at  its  highest,  demands  imagination,  nar 
rative  skill,  and  a  sense  of  unity  and  proportion  in  the  selec 
tion  and  arrangement  of  his  facts,  all  of  which  are  literary 
qualities.  It  is  significant  that  many  of  our  best  historians 
have  begun  authorship  in  the  domain  of  imaginative  litera 
ture:  Bancroft  with  an  early  volume  of  poems;  Motley  with 
his  historical  romances,  Merry  Mount  and  Morton 's  Hope  / 
and  Parkman  with  a  novel,  Vcissall  Morton.  The  oldest  of 
that  modern  group  of  writers  that  have  given  America  an 
honorable  position  in  the  historical  literature  of  the  world 
was  William  Hickling  Prescott  (1796-1859).  Prescott  chose 
for  his  theme  the  history  of  the  Spanish  conquests  in  the 
New  World,  a  subject  full  of  romantic  incident  and  suscep 
tible  of  that  glowing  and  perhaps  slightly  overgorgeous  col 
oring  which  he  laid  on  with  a  liberal  hand.  His  completed 
histories,  in  their  order,  are  the  Reign  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  1837;  the  Conquest  of  Mexico,  1843 — a  topic  which 
Irving  had  relinquished  to  him;  and  the  Conquest  of  Peru, 
1847.  Prescott  was  fortunate  in  being  born  to  leisure  and 
fortune,  but  he  had  difficulties  of  another  kind  to  overcome. 
He  was  nearly  blind,  and  had  to  teach  himself  Spanish  and 
look  up  authorities  through  the  help  of  others,  and  to  write 
with  a  noctograph  or  by  amanuenses. 

George  Bancroft  (1800-91)  issued  the  first  volume  of  his 
10 


146  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

great  History  of  the  United  States  in  1834,  and  exactly  half  a 
century  later  the  final  volume  of  the  work,  bringing  the 
subject  down  to  1789.  Bancroft  had  studied  at  Gottingen, 
and  imbibed  from  the  German  historian  Heeren  the  scientific 
method  of  historical  study.  He  had  access  to  original 
eources,  in  the  nature  of  collections  and  state  papers  in  the 
governmental  archives  of  Europe,  of  which  no  American 
had  hitherto  been  able  to  avail  himself.  His  history,  in 
thoroughness  of  treatment,  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired,  and 
has  become  the  standard  authority  on  the  subject.  As  a  lit 
erary  performance  merely,  it  is  somewhat  wanting  in  flavor, 
Bancroft's  manner  being  heavy  and  stiff  when  compared  with 
Motley's  or  Parkman's.  The  historian's  services  to  his  coun 
try  have  been  publicly  recognized  by  his  successive  appoint 
ments  as  secretary  of  the  navy,  minister  to  England,  and 
minister  to  Germany. 

The  greatest,  on  the  whole,  of  American  historians  was 
John  Lothrop  Motley  (1814-77),  who,  like  Bancroft,  was  a 
student  at  Gottingen  and  United  States  minister  to  England. 
His  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  1856,  and  History  of  the 
United  Netherlands,  published  in  installments  from  1861  to 
1868,  equaled  Bancroft's  work  in  scientific  thoroughness  and 
philosophic  grasp,  and  Prescott's  in  the  picturesque  brill 
iancy  of  the  narrative,  while  it  excelled  them  both  in  its 
masterly  analysis  of  great  historic  characters,  reminding  the 
reader,  in  this  particular,  of  Macaulay's  figure-painting. 
The  episodes  of  the  siege  of  Antwerp  and  the  sack  of  the 
cathedral,  and  of  the  defeat  and  wreck  of  the  Spanish  Ar 
mada,  are  as  graphic  as  Prescott's  famous  description  of 
Cortez's  capture  of  the  city  of  Mexico;  while  the  elder  his 
torian  has  nothing  to  compare  with  Motley's  vivid  personal 
sketches  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  Philip  the  Second,  Henry  of 
Navarre,  and  William  the  Silent.  The  Life  of  John  of 
Barneveld,  1874,  completed  this  series  of  studies  upon  the 
history  of  the  Netherlands,  a  theme  to  which  Motley  was 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS.  147 

attracted  because  the  heroic  struggle  of  the  Dutch  for  liberty 
offered,  in  some  respects,  a  parallel  to  the  growth  of  political 
independence  in  Anglo-Saxon  communities,  and  especially  in 
his  own  America. 

The  last  of  these  Massachusetts  historical  writers  whom  we 
shall  mention  is  Francis  Parkman  (1823-  ),  whose  subject 
has  the  advantage  of  being  thoroughly  American.  His  Ore 
gon  Trail,  1847,  a  series  of  sketches  of  prairie  and  Rocky 
Mountain  life,  originally  contributed  to  the  Knickerbocker 
Magazine,  displays  his  early  interest  in  the  American  In 
dians.  In  1851  appeared  his  first  historical  work,  the  Con 
spiracy  of  Pontiac.  This  has  been  followed  by  the  series 
entitled  France  and  England  in  North  America,  the  six 
successive  parts  of  which  are  as  follows:  the  Pioneers  of 
France  in  the  New  World;  the  Jesuits  in  North  America; 
La  Salle  and  the  Discovery  of  the  Great  West"  the  Old  Re 
gime  in  Canada"  Count  Frontenac  and  New  France;  and 
Montcalm  and  Wolfe.  These  narratives  have  a  wonderful 
vividness,  and  a  romantic  interest  not  inferior  to  Cooper's 
novels.  Parkman  made  himself  personally  familiar  with  the 
scenes  which  he  described,  and  some  of  the  best  descriptions 
of  American  woods  and  waters  are  to  be  found  in  his  histo 
ries.  If  any  fault  is  to  be  found  with  his  books,  indeed,  it 
is  that  their  picturesqueness  and  "  fine  writing  "  are  a  little 
in  excess. 

The  political  literature  of  the  years  from  1837  to  1861 
hinged  upon  the  antislavery  struggle.  In  this  "irrepressible 
conflict "  Massachusetts  led  the  van.  Garrison  had  written 
in  his  Liberator,  in  1830,  "  I  will  be  as  harsh  as  truth  and  as 
uncompromising  as  justice.  I  am  in  earnest;  I  will  not 
equivocate  ;  I  wilt  not  excuse ;  I  will  not  retreat  a  single 
inch;  and  I  will  be  heard."  But  the  Garrisonian  abolition 
ists  remained  for  a  long  time,  even  in  the  North,  a  small 
and  despised  faction.  It  was  a  great  point  gained  when 
men  of  education  and  social  standing,  like  Wendell  Phillips 


148  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

(1811-84)  and  Charles  Sumner  (1811-74),  joined  themselves 
to  the  cause.  Both  of  these  were  graduates  of  Harvard 
and  men  of  scholarly  pursuits.  They  became  the  repre 
sentative  orators  of  the  antislavery  party,  Phillips  on  the 
platform  and  Sumner  in  the  Senate.  The  former  first  came 
before  the  public  in  his  fiery  speech,  delivered  in  Faneuil 
Hall  December  8,  1837,  before  a  meeting  called  to  denounce 
the  murder  of  Lovejoy,  who  had  been  killed  at  Alton,  111., 
while  defending  his  press  against  a  pro-slavery  mob. 
Thenceforth  Phillips's  voice  was  never  idle  in  behalf  of  the 
slave.  His  eloquence  was  impassioned  and  direct,  and  his 
English  singularly  pure,  simple,  and  nervous.  He  is  perhaps 
nearer  to  Demosthenes  than  any  other  American  orator.  He 
was  a  most  fascinating  platform  speaker  on  themes  outside 
of  politics,  and  his  lecture  on  the  Lost  Arts  was  a  favorite 
with  audiences  of  all  sorts. 

Sumner  was  a  man  of  intellectual  tastes,  who  entered  pol 
itics  reluctantly  and  only  in  obedience  to  the  resistless  lead 
ing  of  his  conscience.  He  was  a  student  of  literature  and 
art;  a  connoisseur  of  engravings,  for  example,  of  which  he 
made  a  valuable  collection.  He  was  fond  of  books,  conver 
sation,  and  foreign  travel,  and  in  Europe,  while  still  a  young 
man,  had  made  a  remarkable  impression  in  society.  But  he 
left  all  this  for  public  life,  and  in  1851  was  elected  as  Web 
ster's  successor  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  There 
after  he  remained  the  leader  of  the  abolitionists  in  Congress 
until  slavery  was  abolished.  His  influence  throughout  the 
North  was  greatly  increased  by  the  brutal  attack  upon  him 
in  the  Senate  chamber  in  1856  by  "Bully  Brooks  "  of  South 
Carolina.  Simmer's  oratory  was  stately  and  somewhat 
labored.  While  speaking  he  always  seemed,  as  has  been 
wittily  said,  to  be  surveying  a  "  broad  landscape  of  his  own 
convictions."  His  most  impressive  qualities  as  a  speaker 
were  his  intense  moral  earnestness  and  his  thorough  knowl 
edge  of  his  subject.  The  most  telling  of  his  parliamentary 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOLARS.  149 

speeches  are  perhaps  his  speech  On  the  Kansas- Nebraska 
Bill,  of  February  3,  1854,  and  On  the  Crime  against  Kansas, 
May  19  and  20,  1856;  of  his  platform  addresses,  the  oration 
on  the  True  Grandeur  of  Nations. 


1.  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow.      Voices  of  the  Night. 
The  Skeleton  in  Armor.     TJie  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus.     The 
Village   Blacksmith.     The   Belfry   of  Bruges,   and  Other 

Poems   (1846).     By   the    Seaside.     Hiawatha.     Tales  of  a 
Wayside  Inn. 

2.  Oliver  Wendell   Holmes.     Autocrat  of  the   Breakfast 
Table.     Elsie    Venner.      Old  Ironsides.      The  Last  Leaf. 
My  Aunt.     The   Music- Grinders.      On   Lending  a  Punch- 
Bowl.     Nux  Postcoenatica.     A  Modest  Request.     Tlie  Liv 
ing  Temple.     Meeting  of  the  Alumni  of  Harvard  College. 
Homesick  in  Heaven.     Epilogue  to  the  Breakfast  Table  Se 
ries.     The  Boys.     Dorothy  Q.     The  Iron  Gate. 

3.  James  Russell  Lowell.     The  Biglow  Papers  (two  series). 
Under    the    Willows,    and  Other    Poems    (1868).     Rhcecus. 
The    Shepherd   of  King    Admetus.     The    Vision    of    Sir 
Launfal.     The  Present  Crisis.     The  Dandelion.     The  Birch 
Tree.     Beaver   Brook.     Essays    on   Chaucer.     Shakespeare 
Once  More.      Dryden.     Emerson,  the  Lecturer.      Thoreau. 
My  Garden  Acquaintance.     A  Good  Word  for  Winter.     A 
Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners. 

4.  William  Hickling  Prescott.     The  Conquest  of  Mexico. 

5.  John  Lothrop  Motley.     The  United  Netherlands. 

6.  Francis  Parkman.     The  Oregon  Trail.     The  Jesuits  in 
North  America. 

7.  Representative  American  Orations,  volume  v.     Edited 
by   Alexander    Johnston.      New    York:    G.    P.   Putnam's 
Sons.     1884. 


150  INITIAL  STUDIES  TN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

LITERATURE  IN   THE   CITIES. 
1837-1861. 

LITERATURE  as  a  profession  has  hardly  existed  in  the 
TJnited  States  until  very  recently.  Even  now  the  number  of 
those  who  support  themselves  by  purely  literary  work  is 
small,  although  the  growth  of  the  reading  public  and  the 
establishment  of  great  magazines,  such  as  Harper 's,  the  Cent- 
ury,  and  the  Atlantic,  have  made  a  market  for  intellectual 
wares  which  forty  years  ago  would  have  seemed  a  godsend 
to  poorly  paid  Bohemians  like  Poe  or  obscure  men  of  genius 
like  Hawthorne.  About  1840,  two  Philadelphia  magazines — 
Godey's  Lady's  Jlook  and  Graham**  Monthly — began  to 
pay  their  contributors  twelve  dollars  a  page,  a  price  then 
thought  wildly  munificent.  But  the  first  magazine  of  the 
modern  type  was  Harper's  Monthly,  founded  in  1850. 
American  books  have  always  suffered,  and  still  continue  to 
suffer,  from  the  want  of  an  international  copyright,  which 
lias  Hooded  the  country  with  cheap  reprints  and  translations 
of  foreign  works,  with  which  the  domestic  product  has  been 
unable  to  contend  on  such  uneven  terms.  With  the  first 
ocean  steamers  there  started  up  a  class  of  large-paged  weeklies 
in  New  York  and  elsewhere,  such  as  Brother  Jonathan,  the 
New  World,  and  the  Corsair,  which  furnished  their  readers 
with  the  freshest  writings  of  Dickens  and  Bulwer  and  other 
British  celebrities  within  a  fortnight  after  their  appearance 
in  London.  This  still  further  restricted  the  profits  of  native 
authors  and  nearly  drove  them  from  the  field  of  periodical 
literature.  By  special  arrangement  the  novels  of  Thackeray 


LTTEBATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  151 

and  other  English  writers  were  printed  in  Harper's  in  in 
stallments  simultaneously  with  their  issue  in  English  period 
icals.  The  Atlantic  was  the  first  of  our  magazines  which 
was  founded  expressly  for  the  encouragement  of  home  talent, 
and  which  had  a  purely  Yankee  flavor.  Journalism  was  the 
profession  which  naturally  attracted  men  of  letters,  as  hav 
ing  most  in  common  with  their  chosen  work  and  as  giving 
them  a  medium,  under  their  own  control,  through  which 
they  could  address  the  public.  A  few  favored  scholars,  like 
Prescott,  were  made  independent  by  the  possession  of  private 
fortunes.  Others,  like  Holmes,  Longfellow,  and  Lowell, 
gave  to  literature  such  leisure  as  they  could  get  in  the  in 
tervals  of  an  active  profession  or  of  college  work.  Still 
others,  like  Emerson  and  Thoreau,  by  living  in  the  country 
and  making  their  modest  competence — eked  out  in  Emer 
son's  case  by  lecturing  here  and  there — suffice  for  their  sim 
ple  needs,  secured  themselves  freedom  from  the  restraints  of 
any  regular  calling.  But,  in  default  of  some  mchpou  sto,  our 
men  of  letters  have  usually  sought  the  cities  and  allied  them 
selves  with  the  press.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Lowell 
started  a  short-lived  magazine  on  his  own  account,  and  that 
he  afterward  edited  the  Atlantic  and  the  North  American. 
Also  that  Ripley  and  Charles  A.  Dana  betook  themselves  to 
journalism  after  the  break-up  of  the  Brook  Farm  Community. 
In  the  same  way  William  Cullen  Bryant  (1794-1878),  the 
earliest  American  poet  of  importance,  whose  impulses  drew 
him  to  the  solitudes  of  nature,  was  compelled  to  gain  a 
livelihood  by  conducting  a  daily  newspaper;  or,  as  he  him 
self  puts  it,  was 

"  Forced  to  drudge  for  the  dregs  of  men, 
And  scrawl  strange  words  with  the  barbarous  pen." 

Bryant  was  born  at  Cummington,  in  Berkshire,  the  western 
most  county  of  Massachusetts.  After  two  years  in  Williams 
College  he  studied  law,  and  practiced  for  nine  years  as  a 


152  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

country  lawyer  in  Plainfield  and  Great  Barrington.  Follow 
ing  the  line  of  the  Housatonic  Valley,  the  social  and  theo 
logical  affiliations  of  Berkshire  have  always  been  closer  with 
Connecticut  and  New  York  than  with  Boston  and  eastern 
Massachusetts.  Accordingly,  when  in  1825  Bryant  yielded 
to  the  attractions  of  a  literary  career,  he  betook  himself  to 
New  York  city,  where,  after  a  brief  experiment  in  conduct 
ing  a  monthly  magazine,  the  New  York  Review  and  Athenceum, 
he  assumed  the  editorship  of  the  Evening  Post,  a  Democratic 
and  free-trade  journal,  with  which  he  remained  connected 
till  his  death.  He  already  had  a  reputation  as  a  poet  when 
he  entered  the  ranks  of  metropolitan  journalism.  In  1816 
his  Thanatopsis  had  been  published  in  the  North  American 
Review,  and  had  attracted  immediate  and  general  admira 
tion.  It  had  been  finished,  indeed,  two  years  before,  when 
the  poet  was  only  in  his  nineteenth  year,  and  was  a  wonder 
ful  instance  of  precocity.  The  thought  in  this  stately  hymn 
was  not  that  of  a  young  man,  but  of  a  sage  who  has  reflected 
long  upon  the  universality,  the  necessity,  and  the  majesty 
of  death.  Bryant's  blank  verse  when  at  its  best,  as  in  Than 
atopsis  and  the  Forest  Hymn,  is  extremely  noble.  In  grav 
ity  and  dignity  it  is  surpassed  by  no  English  blank  verse  of 
this  century,  though  in  rich  and  various  modulation  it  falls 
below  Tennyson's  Ulysses  and  Morte  d*  Arthur.  It  was 
characteristic  of  Bryant's  limitations  that  he  came  thus  early 
into  possession  of  his  faculty.  His  range  was  always  a  nar 
row  one,  and  about  his  poetry,  as  a  whole,  there  is  a  certain 
coldness,  rigidity,  and  solemnity.  His  fixed  position  among 
American  poets  is  described  in  his  own  Hymn  to  the  North 
Star  : 

"  And  thou  dost  see  them  rise, 

Star  of  the  pole  1  and  thou  dost  see  them  set. 

Alone,  in  thy  cold  skies, 

Thou  keep'st  thy  old,  unmoving  station  yet, 

Nor  join'st  the  dances  of  that  glittering  train, 

Nor  dipp'st  thy  virgin  orb  in  the  blue  western  main." 


LITERATURE   IN  THE   ClTIES.  153 

In  1821  he  read  The  Ages,  a  didactic  poem,  in  thirty-five 
stanzas,  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  at  Cambridge, 
and  in  the  same  year  brought  out  his  first  volume  of  poems. 
A  second  collection  appeared  in  1832,  which  was  printed  in 
London  under  the  auspices  of  Washington  Irving.  Bryant 
was  the  first  American  poet  who  had  much  of  an  audience  in 
England,  and  Wordsworth  is  said  to  have  learned  Thana- 
topsis  by  heart.  Bryant  was,  indeed,  in  a  measure,  a  scholar 
of  Wordsworth's  school,  and  his  place  among  American 
poets  corresponds  roughly,  though  not  precisely,  to  Words 
worth's  among  English  poets.  With  no  humor,  with  some 
what  restricted  sympathies,  with  little  flexibility  or  openness 
to  new  impressions,  but  gifted  with  a  high,  austere  imagina 
tion,  Bryant  became  the  meditative  poet  of  nature.  His 
best  poems  are  those  in  which  he  draws  lessons  from  nature, 
or  sings  of  its  calming,  purifying,  and  bracing  influences 
upon  the  human  soul.  His  office,  in  other  words,  is  the  same 
which  Matthew  Arnold  asserts  to  be  the  peculiar  office  of 
modern  poetry,  "  the  moral  interpretation  of  nature."  Poems 
of  this  class  are  Green  River,  To  a  Water-fowl,  June,  the 
Death  of  the  Flowers,  and  the  Evening  Wind.  The  song, 
"  O  fairest  of  the  rural  maids,"  which  has  more  fancy  than 
is  common  in  Bryant,  and  which  Poe  pronounced  his  best 
poem,  has  an  obvious  resemblance  to  Wordsworth's  "  Three 
years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shade,"  and  both  of  these  nameless 
pieces  might  fitly  be  entitled — as  Wordsworth's  is  in  Mr. 
Palgrave's  Golden  Treasury — "  The  Education  of  Nature." 

Although  Bryant's  career  is  identified  with  New  York  his 
poetry  is  all  of  New  England.  His  heart  was  always  turn 
ing  back  fondly  to  the  woods  and  streams  of  the  Berkshire 
hills.  There  was  nothing  of  that  urban  strain  in  him  which 
appears  in  Holmes  and  Willis.  He  was,  in  especial,  the  poet 
of  autumn,  of  the  American  October  and  the  New  England  In 
dian  Summer,  that  season  of  "  dropping  nuts  "  and  "  smoky 
light,"  to  whose  subtle  analogy  with  the  decay  of  the  young 


154  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

by  the  New  England  disease,  consumption,  he  gave  such 
tender  expression  in  the  Death  of  the  Flowers,  and  amid 
whose  "bright,  late  quiet"  he  wished  himself  to  pass  away. 
Bryant  is  our  poet  of  "  the  melancholy  days,"  as  Lowell  is 
of  June.  If,  by  chance,  he  touches  upon  June,  it  is  not  with 
the  exultant  gladness  of  Lowell  in  meadows  full  of  bobolinks, 
and  in  the  summer  day  that  is 

"  simply  perfect  from  its  own  resource, 
As  to  the  bee  the  new  campanula's 
Illuminate  seclusion  swung  in  air." 

Rather,  the  stir  of  new  life  in  the  clod  suggests  to  Bryant  by 
contrast  the  thought  of  death;  and  there  is  nowhere  in  his 
poetry  a  passage  of  deeper  feeling  than  the  closing  stanzas  of 
June,  in  which  he  speaks  of  himself,  by  anticipation,  as  of  one 

"  Whose  part  in  all  the  pomp  that  fills 
The  circuit  of  the  summer  hills 
Is — that  his  grave  is  green." 

Bryant  is,  par  excellence,  the  poet  of  New  England  wild 
flowers,  the  yellow  violet,  the  fringed  gentian — to  each  of 
which  he  dedicated  an  entire  poem — the  orchis  and  the 
golden-rod,  "  the  aster  in  the  wood  and  the  yellow  sunflower 
by  the  brook."  With  these  his  name  will  be  associated  as 
Wordsworth's  with  the  daffodil  and  the  lesser  celandine,  and 
Emerson's  with  the  rhodora. 

Except  when  writing  of  nature  he  was  apt  to  be  common 
place,  and  there  are  not  many  such  energetic  lines  in  his  purely 
reflective  verse  as  these  famous  ones  from  The  B  attle- Field : 

"  Truth  crushed  to  earth  shall  rise  again; 

The  eternal  years  of  God  are  hers ; 
But  Error,  wounded,  writhes  in  pain, 

And  dies  among  his  worshipers." 

He  added  but  slowly  to  the  number  of  his  poems,  publishing 
a  new  collection  in  1840,  another  in  1844,  and  Thirty  Poems 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  155 

in  1864.  His  work  at  all  ages  was  remarkably  even.  Thana- 
topsis  was  as  mature  as  any  thing  that  he  wrote  afterward, 
and  among  his  later  pieces  the  Planting  of  the  Apple  Tree 
and  the  Flood  of  Years  were  as  fresh  as  any  thing  that 
he  had  written  in  the  first  flush  of  youth.  Bryant's  poetic 
style  was  always  pure  and  correct,  without  any  tincture 
of  affectation  or  extravagance.  His  prose  writings  are  not 
important,  consisting  mainly  of  papers  of  the  Salmagundi 
variety  contributed  to  the  Talisman,  an  annual  published  in 
1827-30;  some  rather  sketchy  stories,  Tales  of  the  Glauber 
Spa,  1832;  and  impressions  of  Europe,  entitled  Letters  of  a 
Traveler,  issued  in  two  series,  in  1849  and  1858.  In  1869 
and  1871  appeared  his  blank-verse  translations  of  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey,  a  remarkable  achievement  for  a  man  of  his 
age,  and  not  excelled,  upon  the  whole,  by  any  recent  met 
rical  version  of  Homer  in  the  English  tongue.  Bryant's 
half-century  of  service  as  the  editor  of  a  daily  paper 
should  not  be  overlooked.  The  Evening  Post,  under  his 
management,  was  always  honest,  gentlemanly,  and  cour 
ageous,  and  did  much  to  raise  the  tone  of  journalism  in 
New  York. 

Another  Massachusetts  poet,  who  was  outside  the  Boston 
coterie,  like  Bryant,  and,  like  him,  tried  his  hand  at  journal 
ism,  was  John  Greenleaf  Whittier  (1807-  ).  He  was  born 
in  a  solitary  farm-house  near  Haverhill,  in  the  valley  of  the 
Merrimack,  and  his  life  has  been  passed  mostly  at  his  native 
place  and  at  the  neighboring  town  of  Amesbury.  The  local 
color,  which  is  very  pronounced  in  his  poetry,  is  that  of  the 
Merrimack  from  the  vicinity  of  Haverhill  to  its  mouth  at 
Newburyport,  a  region  of  hill-side  farms,  opening  out  below 
into  wide  marshes — "  the  low,  green  prairies  of  the  sea,"  and 
the  beaches  of  Hampton  and  Salisbury.  The  scenery  of  the 
Merrimack  is  familiar  to  all  readers  of  Whittier:  the  cotton- 
spinning  towns  along  its  banks,  with  their  factories  and 
dams,  the  sloping  pastures  and  orchards  of  the  back  country, 


156  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTEKS. 

the  sands  of  Plum  Island  and  the  level  reaches  of  water 
meadow  between  which  glide  the  broad-sailed  "  gundalows  " 
— a  local  corruption  of  gondola — laden  with  hay.  Whittier 
was  a  farmer  lad,  and  had  only  such  education  as  the  district 
school  could  supply,  supplemented  by  two  years  at  the  Hav- 
erhill  Academy.  In  his  School  Days  he  gives  a  picture  of 
the  little  old  country  school-house  as  it  used  to  be,  the  only 
alma  mater  of  so  many  distinguished  Americans,  and  to 
which  many  others  who  have  afterward  trodden  the  pave 
ments  of  great  universities  look  back  so  fondly  as  to  their 
first  wicket  gate  into  the  land  of  knowledge. 

"  Still  sits  the  school-house  by  the  road, 

A  ragged  beggar  sunning ; 
Around  it  still  the  sumachs  grow 

And  blackberry  vines  are  running. 

""Within  the  master's  desk  is  seen, 

Deep-scarred  by  raps  official ; 
The  warping  floor,  the  battered  seats, 

The  jack-knife's  carved  initial." 

A  copy  of  Burns  awoke  the  slumbering  instinct  in  the 
young  poet,  and  he  began  to  contribute  verses  to  Garrison's 
Free  Press,  published  in  Newburyport,  and  to  the  Haverhitt 
Gazette.  Then  he  went  to  Boston,  and  became  editor  for  a 
short  time  of  the  Manufacturer.  Next  he  edited  the  Essex 
Gazette,  at  Haverhill,  and  in  1830  he  took  charge  of  George 
D.  Prentice's  paper,  the  New  England  Weekly  Review,  at 
Hartford,  Conn.  Here  he  fell  in  with  a  young  Connecticut 
poet  of  much  promise,  J.  G.  C.  Brainard,  editor  of  the  Connect 
icut  Mirror,  whose  "  Remains  "  Whittier  edited  in  1832.  At 
Hartford,  too,  he  published  his  first  book,  a  volume  of  prose 
and  verse,  entitled  Legends  of  New  England,  1831,  which 
is  not  otherwise  remarkable  than  as  showing  his  early  inter 
est  in  Indian  colonial  traditions — especially  those  which  had 
a  touch  of  the  supernatural — a  mine  which  he  afterward 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  157 

worked  to  good  purpose  in  the  Bridal  of  Pennacook,  the 
Witch's  Daughter,  and  similar  poems.  Some  of  the  Legends 
testify  to  Brainard's  influence  and  to  the  influence  of  Whit- 
tier's  temporary  residence  at  Hartford.  One  of  the  prose 
pieces,  for  example,  deals  with  the  famous  "  Moodus  Noises  " 
at  Haddam,  on  the  Connecticut  River,  and  one  of  the  poems 
is  the  same  in  subject  with  Brainard's  Black  Fox  of  Salmon 
Elver.  After  a  year  and  a  half  at  Hartford  Whittier  re 
turned  to  Haverhill  and  to  farming. 

The  antislavery  agitation  was  now  beginning,  and  into 
.this  he  threw  himself  with  all  the  ardor  of  his  nature.  He 
became  the  poet  of  the  reform  as  Garrison  was  its  apostle, 
and  Sumner  and  Phillips  its  speakers.  In  1833  he  published 
Justice  and  Expediency,  a  prose  tract  against  slavery,  and 
in  the  same  year  he  took  part  in  the  formation  of  the  Amer 
ican  Antislavery  Society  at  Philadelphia,  sitting  in  the  con 
vention  as  a  delegate  of  the  Boston  abolitionists.  Whittier 
was  a  Quaker,  and  that  denomination,  influenced  by  the 
preaching  of  John  Woolman  and  others,  had  long  since 
quietly  abolished  slavery  within  its  own  communion.  The 
Quakers  of  Philadelphia  and  elsewhere  took  an  earnest 
though  peaceful  part  in  the  Garrisonian  movement.  But  it 
was  a  strange  irony  of  fate  that  had  made  the  fiery-hearted 
Whittier  a  Friend.  His  poems  against  slavery  and  disunion 
have  the  martial  ring  of  a  Tyrtseus  or  a  Kdrner,  added  to 
the  stern  religious  zeal  of  Cromwell's  Ironsides.  They  are 
like  the  sound  of  the  trumpet  blown  before  the  walls  of  Jer 
icho,  or  the  psalms  of  David  denouncing  woe  upon  the 
enemies  of  God's  chosen  people.  If  there  is  any  purely 
Puritan  strain  in  American  poetry  it  is  in  the  war-hymns  of 
the  Quaker  "Hermit  of  Amesbury." "  Of  these  patriotic 
poems  there  were  three  principal  collections:  Voices  of  Free 
dom,  1849;  The  Panorama,  and  Other  Poems,  1856;  and  In 
War  Time,  1863.  Whittier's  work  as  the  poet  of  freedom 
was  done  when,  on  hearing  the  bells  ring  for  the  passage 


158  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  the  constitutional  amendment  abolishing  slavery,  he  wrote 
his  splendid  Laus  Deo,  thrilling  with  the  ancient  Hebrew 
spirit: 

"  Loud  and  long 
Lift  the  old  exulting  song, 
Sing  with  Miriam  by  the  sea — 
He  has  cast  the  mighty  down, 

Horse  and  rider  sink  and  drown, 
He  hath  triumphed  gloriously." 

Of  his  poems  distinctly  relating  to  the  events  of  the  civil 
war,  the  best,  or  at  all  events  the  most  popular,  is  Barbara- 
Frietchie.  Ichabod,  expressing  the  indignation  of  the  Free 
Soilers  at  Daniel  Webster's  seventh  of  March  speech  in  de 
fense  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  is  one  of  Whittier's  best 
political  poems,  and  not  altogether  unworthy  of  comparison 
with  Browning's  Lost  Leader.  The  language  of  Whittier's 
warlike  lyrics  is  biblical,  and  many  of  his  purely  devotional 
pieces  are  religious  poetry  of  a  high  order  and  have  been  in 
cluded  in  numerous  collections  of  hymns.  Of  his  songs  of 
faith  and  doubt,  the  best  are  perhaps  Our  Master,  Chapel  of 
the  Hermits,  and  Eternal  Goodness;  one  stanza  from  the 
last  of  which  is  familiar: 

"  I  know  not  where  his  islands  lift 

Their  fronded  palms  in  air, 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 

Beyond  his  love  and  care." 

But  from  politics  and  war  Whittier  turned  gladly  to  sing 
the  homely  life  of  the  New  England  country-side.  His  rural 
ballads  and  idyls  are  as  genuinely  American  as  any  thing 
that  our  poets  have  written,  and  have  been  recommended, 
as  such,  to  English  working-men  by  Whittier's  co-religionist, 
John  Bright.  The  most  popular  of  these  is  probably  Maud 
Muller,  whose  closing  couplet  has  passed  into  proverb. 
Skipper  Iresorfs  Hide  is  also  very  current.  Better  than 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.       *  159 

either  of  them,  as  poetry,  is  Telling  the  Bees.  But  Whittier's 
masterpiece  in  work  of  a  descriptive  and  reminiscent  kind 
is  Snow-Bound,  1866,  a  New  England  fireside  idyl  which 
in  its  truthfulness  recalls  the  Winter  Evening  of  Cowper's 
Task  and  Burns's  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,  but  in  sweetness 
and  animation  is  superior  to  either  of  them.  Although  in 
some  things  a  Puritan  of  the  Puritans,  Whittier  has  never 
forgotten  that  he  is  also  a  Friend,  and  several  of  his  ballads 
and  songs  have  been  upon  the  subject  of  the  early  Quaker  per 
secutions  in  Massachusetts.  The  most  impressive  of  these 
is  Cassandra  Southwick.  The  latest  of  them,  the  JKintfs 
Missive,  originally  contributed  to  the  Memorial  History  of 
Boston  in  1880,  and  reprinted  the  next  year  in  a  volume 
with  other  poems,  has  been  the  occasion  of  a  rather  lively 
controversy.  The  Bridal  of  Pennacook,  1848,  and  the  Tent 
on  the  Beach,  1867,  which  contain  some  of  his  best  work, 
were  series  of  ballads  told  by  different  narrators,  after  the 
fashion  of  Longfellow's  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn.  As  an 
artist  in  verse,  Whittier  is  strong  and  fervid,  rather  than 
delicate  or  rich.  He  uses  only  a  few  metrical  forms — by 
preference  the  eight-syllabled  rhyming  couplet — 

"  Maud  Muller  on  a  summer's  day 
Raked  the  meadow  sweet  with  hay,"  etc. 

and  the  emphatic  tramp  of  this  measure  becomes  very  monot 
onous,  as  do  some  of  Whittier's  mannerisms,  which  proceed, 
however,  never  from  affectation,  but  from  a  lack  of  study 
and  variety,  and  so,  no  doubt,  in  part  from  the  want  of  that 
academic  culture  and  thorough  technical  equipment  which 
Lowell  and  Longfellow  enjoyed.  Though  his  poems  are  not 
in  dialect,  like  Lowell's  Biglow  Papers,  he  knows  how  to 
make  an  artistic  use  of  homely  provincial  words,  such  as 
"  chore,"  which  give  his  idyls  of  the  hearth  and  the  barn 
yard  a  genuine  Doric  cast.  Whittier's  prose  is  inferior  to 
his  verse.  The  fluency  which  was  a  besetting  sin  of  his 


160  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

poetry,  when  released  from  the  fetters  of  rhyme  and  meter, 
ran  into  wordiness.'  His  prose  writings  were  partly  contri 
butions  to  the  slavery  controversy,  partly  biographical 
sketches  of  English  and  American  reformers,  and  partly 
studies  of  the  scenery  and  folk-lore  of  the  Merrimack  Valley. 
Those  of  most  literary  interest  were  the  Supernaturalism  of 
New  England,  1847,  and  some  of  the  papers  in  Literary  Rec 
reations  and  Miscellanies,  1854. 

While  Massachusetts  was  creating  an  American  literature 
other  sections  of  the  Union  were  by  no  means  idle.  The 
West,  indeed,  was  as  yet  too  raw  to  add  any  thing  of  impor 
tance  to  the  artistic  product  of  the  country.  The  South  was 
hampered  by  circumstances  which  will  presently  be  de 
scribed.  But  in  and  about  the  sea-board  cities  of  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  Richmond  many  pens  were 
busy  filling  the  columns  of  literary  weeklies  and  monthlies; 
and  there  was  a  considerable  output,  such  as  it  was,  of  books 
of  poetry,  fiction,  travel,  and  miscellaneous  light  literature. 
Time  has  already  relegated  most  of  these  to  the  dusty  top 
shelves.  To  rehearse  the  names  of  the  numerous  contributors 
to  the  old  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  to  Qodeifs,  and  Gra- 
Jiavrfs,  and  the  New  Mirror,  and  the  Southern  Literary 
Messenger,  or  to  run  over  the  list  of  author! ings  and  poetas 
ters  in  Poe's  papers  on  the  Literati  of  New  York,  would  be 
very  much  like  reading  the  inscriptions  on  the  head-stones 
of  an  old  grave-yard.  In  the  columns  of  these  prehistoric 
magazines  and  in  the  book  notices  and  reviews  away  back  in 
the  thirties  and  forties,  one  encounters  the  handiwork  and 
the  names  of  Emerson,  Holmes,  Longfellow,  Hawthorne,  and 
Lowell  embodied  in  this  mass  of  forgotten  literature.  It 
would  have  required  a  good  deal  of  critical  acumen,  at  the 
time,  to  predict  that  these  and  a  few  others  would  soon  be 
thrown  out  into  bold  relief,  as  the  significant  and  permanent 
names  in  the  literature  of  their  generation,  while  Paulding, 
Hirst,  Fay,  Dawes,  Mrs.  Osgood,  and  scores  of  others  who 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  161 

figured  beside  them  in  the  fashionable  periodicals,  and  filled 
quite  as  large  a  space  in  the  public  eye,  would  sink  into  ob 
livion  in  less  than  thirty  years.  Some  of  these  latter  were 
clever  enough  people;  they  entertained  their  contemporary 
public  sufficiently,  but  their  work  had  no  vitality  or  "  power 
of  continuance."  The  great  majority  of  the  writings  of  any 
period  are  necessarily  ephemeral,  and  time  by  a  slow  process 
of  natural  selection  is  constantly  sifting  out  the  few  repre 
sentative  books  which  shall  carry  on  the  memory  of  the  pe 
riod  to  posterity.  Now  and  then  it  may  be  predicted  of 
some  undoubted  work  of  genius,  even  at  the  moment  that  it 
sees  the  light,  that  it  is  destined  to  endure.  But  tastes  and 
fashions  change,  and  few  things  are  better  calculated  to  in 
spire  the  literary  critic  with  humility  than  to  read  the  proph 
ecies  in  old  reviews  and  see  how  the  future,  now  become  the 
present,  has  quietly  given  them  the  lie. 

From  among  the  professional  litterateurs  of  his  day  emerges, 
with  ever  sharper  distinctness  as  time  goes  on,  the  name  of 
Edgar  Allan  Poe  (1809-49).  By  the  irony  of  fate  Poe  was 
born  at  Boston,  and  his  first  volume,  Tamerlane,  and  Other 
Poems,  1827,  was  printed  in  that  city  and  bore  upon  its  title- 
page  the  words,  "  By  a  Bostonian."  But  his  parentage,  so  far 
as  it  was  any  thing,  was  Southern.  His  father  was  a  Marylander 
who  had  gone  upon  the  stage  and  married  an  actress,  herself 
the  daughter  of  an  actress  and  a  native  of  England.  Left  an 
orphan  by  the  early  death  of  both  parents,  Poe  was  adopted 
by  a  Mr.  Allan,  a  wealthy  merchant  of  Richmond,  Va.  He 
was  educated  partly  at  an  English  school,  was  student  for  a 
time  in  the  University  of  Virginia,  and  afterward  a  cadet  in 
the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point.  His  youth  was  wild 
and  irregular:  he  gambled  and  drank,  was  proud,  bitter,  and 
perverse;  finally  quarreled  with  his  guardian  and  adopted 
father — by  whom  he  was  disowned — and  then  betook  himself 
to  the  life  of  a  literary  hack.  His  brilliant  but  underpaid 
work  for  various  periodicals  soon  brought  him  into  notice, 
11 


162  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

and  he  was  given  the  editorship  of  the  Southern  JLiterary 
Messenger,  published  at  Richmond,  and  subsequently  of  the 
Gentlemen's  —  afterward  Graham's — Magazine  in  Phila 
delphia.  These  and  all  other  positions  Poe  forfeited  through 
his  dissipated  habits  and  wayward  temper,  and  finally,  in 
1844,  he  drifted  to  New  York,  where  he  found  employment 
on  the  Evening  Mirror  and  then  on  the  Broadway  Journal. 
He  died  of  delirium  tremens  at  the  Marine  Hospital  in  Balti 
more.  His  life  was  one  of  the  most  wretched  in  literary  his 
tory.  He  was  an  extreme  instance  of  what  used  to  be  called 
the  "eccentricity  of  genius."  He  had  the  irritable  vanity 
which  is  popularly  supposed  to  accompany  the  poetic  tem 
perament,  and  was  so  insanely  egotistic  as  to  imagine  that 
Longfellow  and  others  were  constantly  plagiarizing  from 
him.  The  best  side  of  Poe's  character  came  out  in  his  do 
mestic  relations,  in  which  he  displayed  great  tenderness,  pa 
tience,  and  fidelity.  His  instincts  were  gentlemanly,  and  his 
manner  and  conversation  were  often  winning.  In  the  place 
of  moral  feeling  he  had  the  artistic  conscience.  In  his  crit 
ical  papers,  except  where  warped  by  passion  or  prejudice, 
he  showed  neither  fear  nor  favor,  denouncing  bad  work  by 
the  most  illustrious  hands  and  commending  obscure  merit. 
The  "impudent  literary  cliques"  who  puffed  each  other's 
books;  the  feeble  chirrupings  of  the  bardlings  who  manu 
factured  verses  for  the  "Annuals;  "  and  the  twaddle  of  the 
"  genial  "  incapables  who  praised  them  in  flabby  reviews — 
all  these  Poe  exposed  with  ferocious  honesty.  Nor,  though 
his  writings  are  immoral,  can  they  be  called  in  any  sense  im 
moral.  His  poetry  is  as  pure  in  its  unearthliness  as  Bryant's 
in  its  austerity.  • 

By  1831  Poe  had  published  three  thin  books  of  verse,  none 
of  which  had  attracted  notice,  although  the  latest  contained 
the  drafts  of  a  few  of  his  most  perfect  poems,  such  as  Isrofel, 
the  Valley  of  Unrest,  the  City  in  the  Sea,  and  one  of  the 
two  pieces  inscribed  To  Helen.  It  was  his  habit  to  touch 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  163 

and  retouch  his  work  until  it  grew  under  his  more  practiced 
hand  into  a  shape  that  satisfied  his  fastidious  taste.  Hence 
the  same  poem  frequently  re-appears  in  different  stages  of 
development  in  successive  editions.  Poe  was  a  subtle  artist 
in  the  realm  of  the  weird  and  the  fantastic.  In  his  intellect 
ual  nature  there  was  a  strange  conjunction;  an  imagination 
as  spiritual  as  Shelley's,  though,  unlike  Shelley's,  haunted 
perpetually  with  shapes  of  fear  and  the  imagery  of  ruin; 
with  this,  an  analytic  power,  a  scientific  exactness,  and  a 
mechanical  ingenuity  more  usual  in  a  chemist  or  a  mathe 
matician  than  in  a  poet.  He  studied  carefully  the  mechanism 
of  his  verse  and  experimented  endlessly  with  verbal  and 
musical  effects,  such  as  repetition  and  monotone  and  the 
selection  of  words  in  which  the  consonants  alliterated  and 
the  vowels  varied.  In  his  Philosophy  of  Composition  he  de 
scribed  how  his  best-known  poem,  the  Raven,  was  system 
atically  built  up  on  a  preconceived  plan  in  which  the  number 
of  lines  was  first  determined  and  the  word  "  nevermore " 
selected  as  a  starting-point.  No  one  who  knows  the  mood 
in  which  poetry  is  composed  will  believe  that  this  ingenious 
piece  of  dissection  really  describes  the  way  in  which  the 
Haven  was  conceived  and  written,  or  that  any  such  deliber 
ate  and  self-conscious  process  could  originate  the  associations 
from  which  a  true  poem  springs.  But  it  flattered  Poe's 
pride  of  intellect  to  assert  that  his  cooler  reason  had  control 
not  only  over  the  execution  of  his  poetry,  but  over  the  very 
well-head  of  thought  and  emotion.  Some  of  his  most  suc 
cessful  stories,  like  the  Gold  Bug,  the  Mystery  of  Marie 
Roget,  the  Purloined  Letter,  and  the  Murders  in  the  Rue 
Morgue,  were  applications  of  this  analytic  faculty  to  the 
solution  of  puzzles,  such  as  the  finding  of  buried  treasure  or 
of  a  lost  document,  or  the  ferreting  out  of  a  mysterious 
crime.  After  the  publication  of  the  Gold  Sug  he  received 
from  all  parts  of  the  country  specimens  of  cipher-writing, 
which  he  delighted  to  work  out.  Others  of  his  tales  were 


164  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

clever  pieces  of  mystification,  like  Sans  Pfaall,  the  story  of 
a  journey  to  the  moon,  or  experiments  at  giving  verisimili 
tude  to  wild  improbabilities  by  the  skillful  introduction  of 
scientific  details,  as  in  the  Facts  in  the  Case  of  M.  Valde- 
tnar  and  Von  JTempelen's  Discovery.  In  his  narratives  of 
this  kind  Poe  anticipated  the  detective  novels  of  Gaboriau 
and  Wilkie  Collins,  the  scientific  hoaxes  of  Jules  Verne,  and, 
though  in  a  less  degree,  the  artfully  worked  up  likeness  to 
fact  in  Edward  Everett  Hale's  Man  Without  a  Country,  and 
similar  fictions.  While  Dickens's  Barnaby  Rudge  was  pub 
lishing  in  parts  Poe  showed  his  skill  as  a  plot-hunter  by 
publishing  a  paper  in  Graham's  Magazine  in  which  the 
very  tangled  intrigue  of  the  novel  was  correctly  raveled  and 
the  finale  predicted  in  advance. 

In  his  union  of  imagination  and  analytic  power  Poe  resem 
bled  Coleridge,  who,  if  any  one,  was  his  teacher  in  poetry 
and  criticism.  Poe's  verse  often  reminds  one  of  Christabel 
and  the  Ancient  Mariner,  still  oftener  of  Kubla  Khan. 
Like  Coleridge,  too,  he  indulged  at  times  in  the  opium  habit. 
But  in  Poe  the  artist  predominated  over  every  thing  else. 
He  began  not  with  sentiment  or  thought,  but  with  technique, 
with  melody  and  color,  tricks  of  language,  and  effects  of 
verse.  It  is  curious  to  study  the  growth  of  his  style  in  his 
successive  volumes  of  poetry.  At  first  these  are  metrical 
experiments  and  vague  images,  original,  and  with  a  fascinat 
ing  suggestiveness,  but  with  so  little  meaning  that  some  of 
his  earlier  pieces  are  hardly  removed  from  nonsense.  Grad 
ually,  like  distant  music  drawing  nearer  and  nearer,  his  poe 
try  becomes  fuller  of  imagination  and  of  an  inward  signifi 
cance,  without  ever  losing,  however,  its  mysterious  aloofness 
from  the  real  world  of  the  senses.  It  was  a  part  of  Poe's  lit 
erary  creed — formed  upon  his  own  practice  and  his  own  lim 
itations,  but  set  forth  with  a  great  display  of  a  priori  rea 
soning  in  his  essay  on  the  Poetic  Principle  and  elsewhere — 
that  pleasure  and  not  instruction  or  moral  exhortation  was 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  165 

the  end  of  poetry;  that  beauty  and  not  truth  or  goodness 
was  its  means  ;  and,  furthermore,  that  the  pleasure  which  it 
gave  should  be  indefinite.  About  his  own  poetry  there  was 
always  this  indefiniteness.  His  imagination  dwelt  in  a 
strange  country  of  dream — a  "  ghoul-haunted  region  of  Weir," 
"  out  of  space,  out  of  time  " — tilled  with  unsubstantial  land 
scapes  and  peopled  by  spectral  shapes.  And  yet  there  is  a 
wonderful,  hidden  significance  in  this  uncanny  scenery. 
The  reader  feels  that  the  wild,  fantasmal  imagery  is  in  itself 
a  kind  of  language,  and  that  it  in  some  way  expresses  a 
brooding  thought  or  passion,  the  terror  and  despair  of  a 
lost  soul.  Sometimes  there  is  an  obvious  allegory,  as  in  the 
Haunted  Palace,  which  is  the  parable  of  a  ruined  mind,  or  in 
the  Raven,  the  most  popular  of  all  Poe's  poems,  originally 
published  in  the  American  Whig  Review  for  February,  1845. 
Sometimes  the  meaning  is  more  obscure,  as  in  Ulalume, 
which,  to  most  people,  is  quite  incomprehensible,  and  yet 
to  all  readers  of  poetic  feeling  is  among  the  most  charac 
teristic,  and,  therefore,  the  most  fascinating,  of  its  author's 
creations. 

Now  and  then,  as  in  the  beautiful  ballad  Annabel  Lee,  and 
To  One  in  Paradise,  the  poet  emerges  into  the  light  of  com 
mon  human  feeling  and  speaks  a  more  intelligible  language. 
But  in  general  his  poetry  is  not  the  poetry  of  the  heart,  and 
its  passion  is  not  the  passion  of  flesh  and  blood.  In  Poe  the 
thought  of  death  is  always  near,  and  of  the  shadowy  border 
land  between  death  and  life. 

"  The  play  is  the  tragedy  '  Man,' 
Arid  its  hero  the  Conqueror  "Worm." 

The  prose  tale,  Ligeia,  in  which  these  verses  are  inserted, 
is  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  all  Poe's  writings,  and  its 
theme  is  the  power  of  the  will  to  overcome  death.  In  that 
singularly  impressive  poem,  The  Sleeper,  the  morbid  horror 
which  invests  the  tomb  springs  from  the  same  source,  the 


166  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

materiality  of  Poe's  imagination,  which  refuses  to  let  the 
soul  go  free  from  the  body. 

This  quality  explains  why  Poe's  Tales  of  the  Grotesque  and 
Arabesque,  1840,  are  on  a  lower  plane  than  Hawthorne's 
romances,  to  which  a  few  of  them,  like  William  Wilson  and 
The  Man  of  the  Crowd,  have  some  resemblance.  The  former 
of  these,  in  particular,  is  in  Hawthorne's  peculiar  province, 
the  allegory  of  the  conscience.  But  in  general  the  tragedy 
in  Hawthorne  is  a  spiritual  one,  while  Poe  calls  in  the  aid  of 
material  forces.  The  passion  of  physical  fear  or  of  supersti 
tious  horror  is  that  which  his  writings  most  frequently  excite. 
These  tales  represent  various  grades  of  the  frightful  and  the 
ghastly,  from  the  mere  bugaboo  story  like  the  Black  Cat, 
which  makes  children  afraid  to  go  in  the  dark,  up  to  the 
breathless  terror  of  the  Cask  of  Amontillado,  or  the  Red 
Death.  Poe's  masterpiece  in  this  kind  is  the  fateful  tale  of 
the  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  with  its  solemn  and  magnifi 
cent  close.  His  prose,  at  its  best,  often  recalls,  in  its  richly 
imaginative  cast,  the  manner  of  De  Quincey  in  such  passages 
as  his  Dream  Fugue,  or  Our  Toadies  of  Sorrow.  In  descrip 
tive  pieces  like  the  Domain  of  Arnheim,  and  stories  of  ad 
venture  like  the  Descent  into  the  Maelstrom,  and  his  long 
sea-tale,  The  Narrative  of  Arthur  Gordon  Pym,  1838,  he 
displayed  a  realistic  inventiveness  almost  equal  to  Swift's  or 
De  Foe's.  He  was  not  without  a  mocking  irony,  but  he  had 
no  constructive  humor,  and  his  attempts  at  the  facetious  were 
mostly  failures. 

Poe's  magical  creations  were  rootless  flowers.  He  took  no 
hold  upon  the  life  about  him,  and  cared  nothing  for  the  pub 
lic  concerns  of  his  country.  His  poems  and  tales  might  have 
been  written  in  vacua  for  any  thing  American  in  them. 
Perhaps  for  this  reason,  in  part,  his  fame  has  been  so  cosmo 
politan.  In  France  especially  his  writings  have  been  favor 
ites.  Charles  Baudelaire,  the  author  of  the  Fleurs  du  Mai, 
translated  them  into  French,  and  his  own  impressive  but 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  167 

unhealthy  poetry  shows  evidence  of  Poe's  influence.  The 
defect  in  Poe  was  in  character — a  defect  which  will  make 
itself  felt  in  art  as  in  life.  If  he  had  had  the  sweet  home 
feeling  of  Longfellow  or  the  moral  fervor  of  Whittier  he 
might  have  been  a  greater  poet  than  either. 

"If  I  could  dwell 
Where  Tsrafel 

Hath  dwelt,  and  he  where  I, 
He  might  not  sing  so  wildly  well 

A  mortal  melody, 
While  a  bolder  note  than  this  might  swell 

From  my  lyre  within  the  sky  1 " 

Though  Poe  was  a  Southerner,  if  not  by  birth,  at  least  by 
race  and  breeding,  there  was  nothing  distinctly  Southern 
about  his  peculiar  genius,  and  in  his  wandering  life  he  was 
associated  as  much  with  Philadelphia  and  New  York  as 
with  Baltimore  and  Richmond.  The  conditions  which  had 
made  the  Southern  colonies  unfruitful  in  literary  and  educa 
tional  works  before  the  Revolution  continued  to  act  down  to 
the  time  of  the  civil  war.  Eli  Whitney's  invention  of  the  cot 
ton-gin  in  the  closing  years  of  the  last  century  gave  extension 
to  slavery,  making  it  profitable  to  cultivate  the  new  staple  by 
enormous  gangs  of  field-hands  working  under  the  whip  of 
the  overseer  in  large  plantations.  Slavery  became  hence 
forth  a  business  speculation  in  the  States  furthest  south, 
and  not,  as  in  Old  Virginia  and  Kentucky,  a  comparatively 
mild  domestic  system.  The  necessity  of  defending  its  pecul 
iar  institution  against  the  attacks  of  a  growing  faction  in 
the  North  compelled  the  South  to  throw  all  its  intellectual 
strength  into  politics,  which,  for  that  matter,  is  the  natural 
occupation  and  excitement  of  a  social  aristocracy.  Mean 
while  immigration  sought  the  free  States,  and  there  was  no 
middle  class  at  the  South.  The  "  poor  whites  "  were  igno 
rant  and  degraded.  There  were  people  of  education  in  the 
cities  and  on  some  of  the  plantations,  but  there  was  no  great 


168  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

educated  class  from  which  a  literature  could  proceed.  And 
the  culture  of  the  South,  such  as  it  was,  was  becoming  old- 
fashioned  and  local,  as  the  section  was  isolated  more  and 
more  from  the  rest  of  the  Union  and  from  the  enlightened 
public  opinion  of  Europe  by  its  reactionary  prejudices  and 
its  sensitiveness  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Nothing  can  be 
imagined  more  ridiculously  provincial  than  the  sophomorical 
editorials  in  the  Southern  press  just  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  war,  or  than  the  backward  and  ill-informed  articles  which 
passed  for  reviews  in  the  poorly  supported  periodicals  of  the 
South. 

In  the  general  dearth  of  work  of  high  and  permanent  value, 
one  or  two  Southern  authors  may  be  mentioned  whose  writ 
ings  have  at  least  done  something  to  illustrate  the  life  and 
scenery  of  their  section.  When  in  1833  the  Baltimore  Satur 
day  Visitor  offered  a  prize  of  a  hundred  dollars  for  the  best 
prose  tale,  one  of  the  committee  who  awarded  the  prize  to 
Poe's  first  story,  the  MS.  Found  in  a  Bottle,  was  John  P. 
Kennedy,  a  Whig  gentleman  of  Baltimore,  who  afterward 
became  secretary  of  the  navy  in  Fillmore's  administration. 
The  year  before  he  had  published  Swallow  Barn,  a  series  of 
agreeable  sketches  of  country  life  in  Virginia.  In  1835  and 
1838  he  published  his  two  novels,  Horse- Shoe  Robinson  and 
Rob  of  the  J3owl,  the  former  a  story  of  the  Revolutionary 
War  in  South  Carolina,  the  latter  an  historical  tale  of  colo 
nial  Maryland.  These  had  sufficient  success  to  warrant  re 
printing  as  late  as  1852.  But  the  most  popular  and  volumi 
nous  of  all  Southern  writers  of  fiction  was  William  Gilmore 
Simms,  a  South  Carolinian,  who  died  in  1870.  He  wrote 
over  thirty  novels,  mostly  romances  of  Revolutionary  history, 
Southern  life,  and  wild  adventure,  among  the  best  of  which 
were  the  Partisan,  1835,  arid  the  Yemassee.  Simms  was  an 
inferior  Cooper,  with  a  difference.  His  novels  are  good  boys' 
books,  but  are  crude  and  hasty  in  composition.  He  was 
strongly  Southern  in  his  sympathies,  though  his  newspaper, 


LITERATURE  ix  THE  CITIES.  169 

the  Charleston  City  Gazette,  took  part  against  the  Nullifiers. 
His  miscellaneous  writings  include  several  histories  and  biog 
raphies,  political  tracts,  addresses,  and  critical  papers  con 
tributed  to  Southern  magazines.  He  also  wrote  numerous 
poems,  the  most  ambitious  of  which  was  Atlantis,  a  Story  of 
the  Sea,  1832.  His  poems  have  little  value  except  as  here 
and  there  illustrating  local  scenery  and  manners,  as  in  South 
ern  Passages  and  Pictures,  1839.  Mr.  John  Esten  Cooke's 
pleasant  but  not  very  strong  Virginia  Comedians  was,  per 
haps,  in  literary  quality  the  best  Southern  novel  produced 
before  the  civil  war. 

When  Poe  came  to  New  York  the  most  conspicuous  liter 
ary  figure  of  the  metropolis,  with  the  possible  exception  of 
Bryant  and  Halleck,  was  N.  P.  Willis,  one  of  the  editors  of 
the  Evening  Mirror,  upon  which  journal  Poe  was  for  a  time 
engaged.  Willis  had  made  a  literary  reputation,  when  a 
student  at  Yale,  by  his  Scripture  Poems ,  written  in  smooth 
blank  verse.  Afterward  he  had  edited  the  American  Monthly 
in  his  native  city  of  Boston,  and  more  recently  he  had  pub 
lished  Pencilling s  by  the  Way,  1835,  a  pleasant  record  of 
European  sauntering^;  Inklings  of  Adventure,  1836,  a  col 
lection  of  dashing  stories  and  sketches  of  American  and 
foreign  life;  and  Letters  from  Under  a  Bridge,  1839,  a  series 
of  charming  rural  letters  from  his  country  place  at  Owego, 
on  the  Susquehanna.  Willis's  work,  always  graceful  and 
sparkling,  sometimes  even  brilliant,  though  light  in  substance 
and  jaunty  in  style,  had  quickly  raised  him  to  the  summit  of 
popularity.  During  the  years  from  1835  to  1850  he  was  the 
most  successful  American  magazinist,  and  even  down  to  the 
day  of  his  death,  in  1867,  he  retained  his  hold  upon  the  atten 
tion  of  the  fashionable  public  by  his  easy  paragraphing  and  cor 
respondence  in  the  Mirror  and  its  successor,  the  Home  Jour 
nal,  which  catered  to  the  literary  wants  of  the  beau  monde. 
Much  of  Willis's  work  was  ephemeral,  though  clever  of  its 
kind,  but  a  few  of  his  best  tales  and  sketches,  such  as 


170  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

F.  Smith,  The  Ghost  Ball  at  Congress  Hall,  Edith  Limey,  and 
the  Lunatic's  Skate,  together  with  some  of  the  Letters  from 
Under  a  Bridge,  are  worthy  of  preservation,  not  only  as 
readable  stories,  but  as  society  studies  of  life  at  American 
watering-places  like  Nahant  and  Saratoga  and  Ballston  Spa 
half  a  century  ago.  A  number  of  his  simpler  poems,  like 
Unseen  Spirits,  Spring,  To  M — from  Abroad,  and  Lines  on 
Leaving  Europe,  still  retain  a  deserved  place  in  collections 
and  anthologies. 

The  senior  editor  of  the  Mirror,  George  P.  Morris,  was 
once  a  very  popular  song-writer,  and  his  Woodman,  Spare 
that  Tree,  still  survives.  Other  residents  of  New  York  city 
who  have  written  single  famous  pieces  were  Clement  C. 
Moore,  a  professor  in  the  General  Theological  Seminary, 
whose  Visit  from  /St.  Nicholas — "  'Twas  the  Night  Before 
Christmas,"  etc. — is  a  favorite  ballad  in  every  nursery  in  the 
land;  Charles  Fenno  Hoffman,  a  novelist  of  reputation  in  his 
time,  but  now  remembered  only  as  the  author  of  the  song 
Sparkling  and  Bright,  and  the  patriotic  ballad  of  Monterey" 
Robert  IT.  Messinger,  a  native  of  Boston,  but  long  resident 
in  New  York,  where  he  was  a  familiar  figure  in  fashionable 
society,  who  wrote  Give  Me  the  Old,  a  fine  ode  with  a 
choice  Horatian  flavor;  and  William  Allen  Butler,  a  lawyer 
and  occasional  writer,  whose  capital  satire  of  Nothing  to  Wear 
was  published  anonymously  and  had  a  great  run.  Of  younger 
poets,  like  Stoddard  and  Aldrich,  who  formerly  wrote  for 
the  Mirror  and  who  are  still  living  and  working  in  the  ma 
turity  of  their  powers,  it  is  not  within  the  limits  and  design 
of  this  sketch  to  speak.  But  one  of  their  contemporaries, 
Bayard  Taylor,  who  died  American  minister  at  Berlin,  in 
1878,  though  a  Pennsylvanian  by  birth  and  rearing,  may  be 
reckoned  among  the  "  literati  of  New  York."  A  farmer  lad 
from  Chester  County,  who  had  learned  the  printer's  trade 
and  printed  a  little  volume  of  his  juvenile  verses  in  1844,  he 
came  to  New  York  shortly  after  with  credentials  from  Dr. 


LITERATURE  ix  THE  CITIES.  171 

Griswold,  the  editor  of  Graham's,  and  obtaining  encourage 
ment  and  aid  from  Willis,  Horace  Greeley,  and  others,  he  set 
out  to  make  the  tour  of  Europe,  walking  from  town  to  town 
in  Germany  and  getting  employment  now  and  then  at  his 
trade  to  help  pay  the  expenses  of  the  trip.  The  story  of 
these  Wanderjahre  he  told  in  his  Views  Afoot,  1846.  This 
was  the  first  of  eleven  books  of  travel  written  during  the 
course  of  his  life.  He  was  an  inveterate  nomad,  and  his 
journeyings  carried  him  to  the  remotest  regions — to  Califor 
nia,  India,  China,  Japan,  and  the  isles  of  the  sea,  to  Central 
Africa  and  the  Soudan,  Palestine,  Egypt,  Iceland,  and  the 
"  by-ways  of  Europe."  His  head-quarters  at  home  were  in 
New  York,  where  he  did  literary  work  for  the  Tribune.  He 
was  a  rapid  and  incessant  worker,  throwing  off  many  volumes 
of  verse  and  prose,  fiction,  essays,  sketches,  translations,  and 
criticisms,  mainly  contributed  in  the  first  instance  to  the 
magazines.  His  versatility  was  very  marked,  and  his  poetry 
ranged  from  Rhymes  of  Travel,  1848,  and  Poems  of  the 
Orient,  1854,  to  idyls  and  home  ballads  of  Pennsylvania 
life,  like  the  Quaker  Widow  and  the  Old  Pennsylvania 
Farmer  ;  and  on  the  other  side,  to  ambitious  and  somewhat 
mystical  poems,  like  the  Masque  of  the  Gods,  1872 — 
written  in  four  days — and  dramatic  experiments  like  the 
Prophet,  1874,  and  Prince  Deukalion,  1878.  He  was  a 
man  of  buoyant  and  enger  nature,  with  a  great  appe 
tite  for  new  experience,  a  remarkable  memory,  a  talent 
for  learning  languages,  and  a  too  great  readiness  to  take 
the  hue  of  his  favorite  books.  From  his  facility,  his 
openness  to  external  impressions  of  scenery  and  cos 
tume  and  his  habit  of  turning  these  at  once  into  the 
service  of  his  pen,  it  results  that  there  is  something 
"newspapery"  and  superficial  about  most  of  his  prose. 
It  is  reporter's  work,  though  reporting  of  a  high  order. 
His  poetry  too,  though  full  of  glow  and  picturesque- 
ness,  is  largely  imitative,  suggesting  Tennyson  not  unfre- 


172  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

quently,  but  more  often  Shelley.  His  spirited  Bedouin 
Song,  for  example,  has  an  echo  of  Shelley's  Lines  to  an 
Indian  Air: 

"  From  the  desert  I  come  to  thee 

On  a  stallion  shod  with  tire ; 
And  the  winds  are  left  behind 

In  the  speed  of  my  desire. 
Under  thy  window  I  stand, 

And  the  midnight  hears  my  cry; 
I  love  thee,  I  love  but  thee, 

With  a  love  that  shall  not  die." 

The  dangerous  quickness  with  which  he  caught  the  manner 
of  other  poets  made  him  an  admirable  parodist  and  transla 
tor.  His  Echo  Club,  1876,  contains  some  of  the  best  traves 
ties  in  the  tongue,  and  his  great  translation  of  Goethe's 
Faust,  1870-71 — with  its  wonderfully  close  reproduction  of 
the  original  meters — is  one  of  the  glories  of  American  liter 
ature.  All  in  all,  Taylor  may  unhesitatingly  be  put  first 
among  our  poets  of  the  second  generation — the  generation 
succeeding  that  of  Longfellow  and  Lowell — although  the 
lack  in  him  of  original  genius  self-determined  to  a  peculiar 
sphere,  or  the  want  of  an  inward  fixity  and  concentration  to 
resist  the  rich  tumult  of  outward  impressions,  has  made  him 
less  significant  in  the  history  of  our  literary  thought  than 
some  other  writers  less  generously  endowed. 

Taylor's  novels  had  the  qualities  of  his  verse.  They  were 
profuse,  eloquent,  and  faulty.  John  Godfrey's  Fortune, 
1864,  gave  a  picture  of  bohemian  life  in  New  York.  Han 
nah  Thurston,  1863,  and  the  Story  of  Kennett,  1866,  intro 
duced  many  incidents  and  persons  from  the  old  Quaker  life 
of  rural  Pennsylvania,  as  Taylor  remembered  it  in  his  boy 
hood.  The  former  was  like  Hawthorne's  Blithedale  Ro 
mance,  a  satire  on  fanatics  and  reformers,  and  its  heroine  is 
a  nobly  conceived  character,  though  drawn  with  some  exag 
geration.  The  Story  of  Kennett,  which  is  largely  autobio- 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  173 

graphic,  has  a  greater  freshness  and  reality  than  the  others, 
and  is  full  of  personal  recollections.  In  these  novels,  as  in 
his  short  stories,  Taylor's  pictorial  skill  is  greater  on  the 
whole  than  his  power  of  creating  characters  or  inventing 
plots. 

Literature  in  the  West  now  began  to  have  an  existence. 
Another  young  poet  from  Chester  County,  Pa.,  namely, 
Thomas  Buchanan  Read,  went  to  Cincinnati,  and  not  to  New 
York,  to  study  sculpture  and  painting,  about  1837,  and  one 
of  his  best-known  poems,  Pons  Maximus,  was  written  on  the 
occasion  of  the  opening  of  the  susp<*nsion  bridge  across  the 
Ohio.  Read  came  East,  to  be  sure,  in  1841,  and  spent  many 
years  in  our  sea-board  cities  and  in  Italy.  He  was  distinctly 
a  minor  poet,  but  some  of  his  Pennsylvania  pastorals,  like 
the  Deserted  Road,  have  a  natural  sweetness;  and  his  luxu 
rious  Drifting,  which  combines  the  methods  of  painting  and 
poetry,  is  justly  popular.  Sheridan's  Ride — perhaps  his 
most  current  piece — is  a  rather  forced  production,  and  has 
been  overpraised.  The  two  Ohio  sister  poets,  Alice  and 
Phoebe  Cary,  were  attracted  to  New  York  in  1850,  as  soon 
as  their  literary  success  seemed  assured.  They  made  that 
city  their  home  for  the  remainder  of  their  lives.  Poe 
praised  Alice  Gary's  Pictures  of  Memory,  and  Phoebe's 
Nearer  Home  has  become  a  favorite  hymn.  There  is  noth 
ing  peculiarly  Western  about  the  verse  of  the  Cary  sisters. 
It  is  the  poetry  of  sentiment,  memory,  and  domestic  affec 
tion,  entirely  feminine,  rather  tame  and  diffuse  as  a  whole, 
but  tender  and  sweet,  cherished  by  many  good  women  and 
dear  to  simple  hearts. 

A  stronger  smack  of  the  soil  is  in  the  Negro  melodies  like 
Uncle  Ned,  O  Susanna,  Old  Folks  at  Home,  '  Way  Down 
South,  Nelly  was  a  Lady,  My  Old  Kentucky  Home,  etc., 
wrhich  were  the  work,  not  of  any  Southern  poet,  but  of  Ste 
phen  C.  Foster,  a  native  of  Allegheny,  Pa.,  and  a  resident 
of  Cincinnati  and  Pittsburg.  He  composed  the  words  and 


174  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMEKICAN  LETTEES. 

music  of  these,  and  many  others  of  a  similar  kind,  during 
the  years  1847  to  1861.  Taken  together  they  form  the  most 
original  and  vital  addition  which  this  country  has  made  to 
the  psalmody  of  the  world,  and  entitle  Foster  to  the  first 
rank  among  American  song-writers. 

As  Foster's  plaintive  melodies  carried  the  pathos  and  hu 
mor  of  the  plantation  all  over  the  land,  so  Mrs.  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe's  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  1852,  brought  home  to 
millions  of  readers  the  sufferings  of  the  Negroes  in  the 
"  black  belt "  of  the  cotton-growing  States.  This  is  the 
most  popular  novel  ever  written  in  America.  Hundreds  of 
thousands  of  copies  were  sold  in  this  country  and  in  En 
gland,  and  some  forty  translations  were  made  into  foreign 
tongues.  In  its  dramatized  form  it  still  keeps  the  stage,  and 
the  statistics  of  circulating  libraries  show  that  even  now  it 
is  in  greater  demand  than  any  other  single  book.  It  did 
more  than  any  other  literary  agency  to  rouse  the  public  con 
science  to  a  sense  of  the  shame  and  horror  of  slavery ;  more 
even  than  Garrison's  Liberator;  more  than  the  indignant 
poems  of  Whittier  and  Lowell  or  the  orations  of  Sumner 
and  Phillips.  It  presented  the  thing  concretely  and  dramat 
ically,  and  in  particular  it  made  the  odious  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  forever  impossible  to  enforce.  It  was  useless  for  the 
defenders  of  slavery  to  protest  that  the  picture  was  exag 
gerated,  and  that  planters  like  Legree  were  the  exception. 
The  system  under  which  such  brutalities  could  happen,  and 
did  sometimes  happen,  was  doomed.  It  is  easy  now  to  point 
out  defects  of  taste  and  art  in  this  masterpiece,  to  show  that 
the  tone  is  occasionally  melodramatic,  that  some  of  the  char 
acters  are  conventional,  and  that  the  literary  execution  is 
in  parts  feeble  and  in  others  coarse.  In  spite  of  all,  it  re 
mains  true  that  Uncle  Toni's  Cabin  is  a  great  book,  the  work 
of  genius  seizing  instinctively  upon  its  opportunity  and  ut 
tering  the  thought  of  the  time  with  a  power  that  thrilled  the 
heart  of  the  nation  and  of  the  world.  Mrs.  Stowe  never 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  175 

repeated  her  first  success.  Some  of  her  novels  of  New  En 
gland  life,  such  as  the  Minister's  Wooing,  1859,  and  the 
Pearl  of  Orr's  Island,  1862,  have  a  mild  kind  of  interest, 
and  contain  truthful  portraiture  of  provincial  ways  and 
traits;  while  later  fictions  of  a  domestic  type,  like  Pink  and 
White  Tyranny  and  My  Wife  and  I,  are  really  beneath 
criticism. 

There  were  other  Connecticut  writers  contemporary  with 
Mrs.  Stowe:  Mrs.  L.  H.  Sigourney,  for  example,  a  Hartford 
poetess,  formerly  known  as  "  the  Hemans  of  America,"  but 
now  quite  obsolete;  and  J.  G.  Percival,  of  New  Haven,  a 
shy  and  eccentric  scholar,  whose  geological  work  was  of 
value,  and  whose  memory  is  preserved  by  one  or  two  of  his 
simpler  poems,  still  in  circulation,  such  as  To  Seneca  Lake 
and  the  Coral  Grove.  Another  Hartford  poet,  Brainard — 
already  spoken  of  as  an  early  friend  of  Whittier — died 
young,  leaving  a  few  pieces  which  show  that  his  lyrical  gift 
was  spontaneous  and  genuine,  but  had  received  little  culti 
vation.  A  much  younger  writer  than  either  of  these,  Donald 
G.  Mitchell,  of  New  Haven,  has  a  more  lasting  place  in  our 
literature,  by  virtue  of  his  -charmingly  written  Reveries  of  a 
Bachelor,  1850,  and  Dream  Life,  1852,  stories  which  sketch 
themselves  out  in  a  series  of  reminiscences  and  lightly  con 
nected  scenes,  and  which  always  appeal  freshly  to  young  men 
because  they  have  that  dreamy  outlook  upon  life  which  is 
characteristic  of  youth.  But,  upon  the  whole,  the  most  im 
portant  contribution  made  by  Connecticut  in  that  generation 
to  the  literary  stock  of  America  was  the  Beecher  family. 
Lyman  Beecher  had  been  an  influential  preacher  and  theolo 
gian,  and  a  sturdy  defender  of  orthodoxy  against  Boston 
Uriitarianism.  Of  his  numerous  sons  and  daughters,  all  more 
or  less  noted  for  intellectual  vigor  and  independence,  the 
most  eminent  were  Mrs.  Stowe  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  the 
great  pulpit  orator  of  Brooklyn.  Mr.  Beecher  was  too  busy 
a  man  to  give  more  than  his  spare  moments  to  general  liter- 


176  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

ature.  His  sermons,  lectures,  and  addresses  were  reported 
for  the  daily  papers  and  printed  in  part  in  book  form;  but 
these  lose  greatly  when  divorced  from  the  large,  warm,  and 
benignant  personality  of  the  man.  His  volumes  made  up  of 
articles  in  the  Independent  and  the  Ledger,  such  as  Star  Pa 
pers.,  1855,  and  Eyes  and  Ears,  1862,  contain  many  delight 
ful  morceaux  upon  country  life  and  similar  topics,  though 
they  are  hardly  wrought  with  sufficient  closeness  and  care 
to  take  a  permanent  place  in  letters.  Like  Willis's  Epliem- 
erce,  they  are  excellent  literary  journalism,  but  hardly 
literature. 

We  may  close  our  retrospect  of  American  literature  before 
1861  with  a  brief  notice  of  one  of  the  most  striking  literary 
phenomena  of  the  time — the  Leaves  of  'Grass  of  Walt 
Whitman,  published  at  Brooklyn  in  1855.  The  author,  born 
at  West  Hills,  Long  Island,  in  1819,  had  been  printer,  school 
teacher,  editor,  and  builder.  He  had  scribbled  a  good  deal 
of  poetry  of  the  ordinary  kind,  which  attracted  little  atten 
tion,  but  finding  conventional  rhymes  and  meters  too  cramp 
ing  a  vehicle  for  hife  need  of  expression,  he  discarded  them 
for  a  kind  of  rhythmic  chant,  of  which  the  following  is  a 
fair  specimen  : 

"Press  close,  bare-bosom'd  night!     Press  close,  magnetic,   nourishing 

night ! 

Night  of  south  winds  !  night  of  the  few  large  stars  I 
Still,  nodding  night !  mad,  naked,  summer  night  1  " 

The  invention  was  not  altogether  a  new  one.  The  English 
translation  of  the  psalms  of  David  and  of  some  of  the 
prophets,  the  Poems  of  Ossian,  and  some  of  Matthew 
Arnold's  unrhymed  pieces,  especially  the  Strayed  Reveller, 
have  an  irregular  rhythm  of  this  kind,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
old  Anglo-Saxon  poems,  like  Beowulf,  and  the  Scripture  par 
aphrases  attributed  to  Caedmon.  But  this  species  of  oratio 
soluta,  carried  to  the  lengths  to  which  Whitman  carried  it, 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  177 

had  an  air  of  novelty  which  was  displeasing  to  some,  while 
to  others,  weary  of  familiar  measures  and  jingling  rhymes, 
it  was  refreshing  in  its  boldness  and  freedom.  There  is  no 
consenting  estimate  of  this  poet.  Many  think  that  his  so- 
called  poems  are  not  poems  at  all,  but  simply  a  bad  variety 
of  prose;  that  there  is  nothing  to  him  beyond  a  combination 
of  affectation  and  indecency;  and  that  the  Whitman  culte  is 
a  passing  "fad  "  of  a  few  literary  men,  and  especially  of  a 
number  of  English  critics  like  Rossetti,  Swinburne,  Bu 
chanan,  etc.,  who,  being  determined  to  have  something  un 
mistakably  American — that  is,  different  from  any- thing  else 
— iu  writings  from  this  side  of  the  water,  before  they  will 
acknowledge  any  originality  in  them,  have  been  misled  into 
discovering  in  Whitman  "  the  poet  of  democracy."  Others 
maintain  that  he  is  the  greatest  of  American  poets,  or,  in 
deed,  of  all  modern  poets;  that  he  is  "cosmic,"  or  universal, 
and  that  he  has  put  an  end  forever  to  puling  rhymes  and 
lines  chopped  up  into  metrical  feet.  Whether  Whitman's 
poetry  is  formally  poetry  at  all  or  merely  the  raw  material 
of  poetry,  the  chaotic  and  amorphous  impression  which  it 
makes  on  readers  of  conservative  tastes  results  from  his  ef 
fort  to  take  up  into  his  verse  elements  which  poetry  has 
usually  left  out — the  ugly,  the  earthy,  and  even  the  disgust 
ing;  the  "  under  side  of  things,"  which  he  holds  not  to  be 
prosaic  when  apprehended  with  a  strong,  masculine  joy  in 
life  and  nature  seen  in  all  their  aspects.  The  lack  of  these 
elements  in  the  conventional  poets  seems  to  him  and  his  dis 
ciples  like  leaving  out  the  salt  from  the  ocean,  making  poetry 
merely  pretty  and  blinking  whole  classes  of  facts.  Hence 
the  naturalism  and  animalism  of  some  of  the  divisions  in 
Leaves  of  Grass,  particularly  that  entitled  Children  of  Adam, 
which  gave  great  offense  by  its  immodesty,  or  its  outspoken 
ness.  Whitman  holds  that  nakedness  is  chaste;  that  all  the 
functions  of  the  body  in  healthy  exercise  are  equally  clean; 
that  all,  in  fact,  are  divine,  and  that  matter  is  as  divine  as 
12 


178  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

spirit.  The  effort  to  get  every  thing  into  his  poetry,  to 
speak  out  his  thought  just  as  it  conies  to  him,  accounts,  too, 
for  his  way  of  cataloguing  objects  without  selection.  His 
single  expressions  are  often  unsurpassed  for  descriptive  beauty 
and  truth.  He  speaks  of  "the  vitreous  pour  of  the  full 
moon,  just  tinged  with  blue,"  of  the  "lisp"  of  the  plane,  of 
the  prairies,  "  where  herds  of  buffalo  make  a  crawling  spread 
of  the  square  miles."  But  if  there  is  any  eternal  distinction 
between  poetry  and  prose,  the  most  liberal  canons  of  the 
poetic  art  will  never  agree  to  accept  lines  like  these: 

"And  [I]  remember  putting  plasters  on  the  galls  of  his  neck  and  ankles; 
He  stayed  with  me  a  week  before  he  was  recuperated,  and  passed  north." 

Whitman  is  the  spokesman  of  democracy  and  of  the  future; 
full  of  brotherliness  and  hope,  loving  the  warm,  gregarious 
pressure  of  the  crowd  and  the  touch  of  his  comrade's  elbow 
in  the  ranks.  He  liked  the  people — multitudes  of  people ; 
the  swarm  of  life  beheld  from  a  Broadway  omnibus  or  a 
Brooklyn  ferry-boat.  The  rowdy  and  the  Xegro  truck- 
driver  were  closer  to  his  sympathy  than  the  gentleman  and 
the  scholar.  "I  loaf  and  invite  my  soul,"  he  writes;  "I 
sound  my  barbaric  yawp  over  the  roofs  of  the  world."  His 
poem  Walt  Whitman,  frankly  egotistic,  simply  describes 
himself  as  a  typical,  average  man — the  same  as  any  other 
man,  and  therefore  not  individual  but  universal.  He  has 
great  tenderness  and  heartiness — "the  good  gray  poet;  "  and 
during  the  civil  war  he  devoted  himself  unreservedly  to  the 
wounded  soldiers  in  the  Washington  hospitals — an  experience 
which  he  has  related  in  the  Dresser  and  elsewhere.  It  is 
characteristic  of  his  rough  and  ready  comradery  to  use  slang 
and  newspaper  English  in  his  poetry,  to  call  himself  Walt 
instead  of  Walter,  and  to  have  his  picture  taken  in  a  slouch 
hat  and  with  a  flannel  shirt  open  at  the  throat.  His  de- 
criers  allege  that  he  poses  for  effect;  that  he  is  simply  a  back 
ward  eddy  in  the  tide,  and  significant  only  as  a  temporary 


LITERATURE  IN  THE  CITIES.  179 

reaction  against  ultra  civilization — like  Thoreau,  though  in  a 
different  way.  But  with  all  his  shortcomings  in  art  there  is  a 
healthy,  virile,  tumultuous  pulse  of  life  in  his  lyric  utterance 
and  a  great  sweep  of  imagination  in  his  panoramic  view  of 
times  and  countries.  One  likes  to  read  him  because  he  feels 
so  good,  enjoys  so  fully  the  play  of  his  senses,  and  has  such 
a  lusty  confidence  in  his  own  immortality  and  in  the  pros 
pects  of  the  human  race.  Stripped  of  verbiage  and  repeti 
tion,  his  ideas  are  not  many.  His  indebtedness  to  Emerson 
— who  wrote  an  introduction  to  the  Leaves  of  Grass — is  mani 
fest,  lie  sings  of  man  and  not  men,  and  the  individual  dif 
ferences  of  character,  sentiment,  and  passion,  the  dramatic 
elements  of  life,  find  small  place  in  his  system.  It  is.  too 
early  to  say  what  will  be  his  final  position  in  literary  his 
tory.  But  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  democratic  masses  have 
not  accepted  him  yet  as  their  poet.  Whittier  and  Long 
fellow,  the  poets  of  conscience  and  feeling,  are  the  darlings 
of  the  American  people.  The  admiration,  and  even  the 
knowledge  of  Whitman,  are  mostly  esoteric,  confined  to  the 
literary  class.  It  is  also  not  without  significance  as  to  the 
ultimate  reception  of  his  innovations  in  verse  that  he  has 
numerous  parodists,  but  no  imitators.  The  tendency  among 
our  younger  poets  is  not  toward  the  abandonment  of  rhyme 
and  meter,  but  toward  the  introduction  of  new  stanza  forms 
and  an  increasing  carefulness  and  finish  in  the  technique  of 
their  art.  It  is  observable,  too,  that  in  his  most  inspired 
passages  Whitman  reverts  to  the  old  forms  of  verse;  to  blank 
verse,  for  example,  in  the  Man-of-  War- Bird: 

"  Thou  who  hast  slept  all  night  upon  the  storm, 
"Waking  renewed  on  thy  prodigious  pinions,"  etc.  ; 

and  elsewhere  not  infrequently  to  dactylic  hexameters  and 
pentameters: 

"  Earth  of  shine  and  dark,  mottling  the  tide  of  the-  river!  .  .  . 
Far-swooping,  elbowed  earth  !  rich,  apple-blossomed  earth."' 


180  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Indeed,  Whitman's  most  popular  poem,  My  Captain,  writ 
ten  after  the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  differs  little 
in  form  from  ordinary  verse,  as  a  stanza  of  it  will  show: 

"  My  captain  does  not  answer,  his  lips  are  pale  and  still ; 
My  father  does  not  feel  my  arm,  he  has  no  pulse  nor  will ; 
The  ship  is  anchored  safe  and  sound,  its  voyage  closed  and  done; 
From  fearful  trip  the  victor  ship  comes  in  with  abject  won. 
Exult,  0  shores,  and  ring,  0  bells  1 

But  I,  with  mournful  tread, 
Walk  the  deck,  my  captain  lies 
Fallen,  cold  and  dead." 

This  is  from  Drum  Taps,  a  volume  of  poems  of  the  civil 
war.  Whitman  has  also  written  prose  having  much  the 
same  quality  as  his  poetry:  Democratic  Vistas,  Memoranda 
of  the  Civil  War,  and,  more  recently,  Specimen  Days.  His 
residence  of  late  years  has  been  at  Camden,  New  Jersey, 
where  a  centennial  edition  of  his  writings  was  published  in 
1876. 


1.  William  Cullen  Bryant.     Thanatopsis.     To  a  Water- 
fowl.      Green  River.     Hymn  to  the  North  Star.     A  Forest 
Hymn.     "  0  Fairest   of  the   Rural   Maids"     June.     The 
Death  of  the  Flowers.     The  Evening  Wind.     The   Battle- 
Field.      The   Planting   of  the  Apple-tree.     The  Flood  of 
Years. 

2.  John  Greenleaf  Whittier.     Cassandra  Southicick.     The 
New  Wife  and  the.  Old.     The  Virginia  Slave  Mother.     Ran 
dolph  of  Roanoke.     Barclay  of  Ury.     The  Witch  of  Wen- 
ham.     Skipper  Iresorfs  Ride.     Marguerite.     Maud  Midler'. 
Telling  the  Bees.    My  Playmate.    Barbara  Frietchie.    Icha- 
bod.     Laus  Deo.     Snow-Bound. 

3.  Edgar  Allan  Poe.     The  Raven.     The  Bells.     Israfel. 
Ulalume.     To  Helen.     The  City  in  the  Sea.     Annabel  Lee. 
To  One  in  Paradise.     The  Sleeper.     The  Valley  of  Unrest. 


LTTERATUKE  IN  THE  CITIES.  181 

The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher.  Ligeia.  William  Wilson. 
The  Cask  of  Amontillado.  The  Assignation.  The  Masque 
of  the  Red  Death.  Narrative  of  A.  Gordon  Pym. 

4.  K    P.   Willis.     Select  Prose    Writings.     New   York: 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons.     1886. 

5.  Mrs.  H.  B.  Stowe.     Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.     Oldtown  Folks. 

6.  W.  G.  Simms.     The  Partisan.     The  Yemassee. 

7.  Bayard  Taylor.  •  A   Bacchic    Ode.     Hylas.     KuUeh. 
The  Soldier  and  the  Pard.     Sicilian  Wine.     Taurus.     Sera- 
pion.     The  Metempsychosis  of  the  Pine.     The  Temptation 
of  Hassan  Ben  Klialed.     Bedouin  Song.     Euphorion.     The 
Quaker  Widow.     John   Reid.     Lars.      Views  Afoot.     By 
ways  of  Europe.     The  Story  of  Kennett.     The  Echo  Club. 

8.  Walt  Whitman.     My  Captain.     "When  Lilacs  Last 
in  the  Door-yard  Bloomed."     "  Out  of  the  Cradle  Endlessly 
Rocking."     Pioneers,  0  Pioneers.     The  Mystic  Trumpeter. 
A  Woman   at  Auction.     Sea-shore  Memoirs.      Passage   to 
India.     Mannahatta.     The  Wound  Dresser.     Longings  for 
Home. 

9.  Poets   of  America.      By   E.   C.    Stedman.      Boston: 
Bought  on,  Mifflin  &  Co.     1885. 


182  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

LITERATURE    SINCE    1861. 

A  GENERATION  has  nearly  passed  since  the  outbreak  of  the 
civil  war,  and  although  public  affairs  are  still  mainly  in  the 
hands  of  men  who  had  reached  manhood  before  the  conflict 
opened,  or  who  were  old  enough  at  that  time  to  remember 
clearly  its  stirring  events,  the  younger  men  who  are  daily  com 
ing  forward  to  take  their  places  know  it  only  by  tradition. 
It  makes  a  definite  break  in  the  history  of  our  literature,  and  a 
number  of  new  literary  schools  and  tendencies  have  appeared 
since  its  close.  As  to  the  literature  of  the  war  itself,  it  was 
largely  the  work  of  writers  who  had  already  reached  or  passed 
middle  age.  All  of  the  more  important  authors  described  in 
the  last  three  chapters  survived  the  Rebellion  except  Poe, 
who  died  in  1849,  Prescott,  who  died  in  1859,  and  Thoreau 
and  Hawthorne,  who  died  in  the  second  and  fourth  years  of 
the  war,  respectively.  The  final  and  authoritative  history 
of  the  struggle  has  not  yet  been  written,  and  cannot  be  writ 
ten  for  many  years  to  come.  Many  partial  and  tentative 
accounts  have,  however,  appeared,  among  which  may  be 
mentioned,  on  the  Northern  side,  Horace  Greeley?s  American 
Conflict,  1864-66;  Vice-President  Wilson's  Rise  and  Fall  of 
the  Slave  Power  in  America,  and  J.  W.  Draper's  American 
Civil  War,  1868-70;  on  the  Southern  side  Alexander  H. 
Stephens's  Confederate  States  of  America,  Jefferson  Davis's 
llise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America,  and  E. 
A.  Pollard's  Lost  Cause.  These,  with  the  exception  of  Dr. 
Draper's  philosophical  narrative,  have  the  advantage  of  be 
ing  the  work  of  actors  in  the  political  or  military  events 
which  they  describe,  and  the  disadvantage  of  being,  there- 


LITERATURE  SIXCE  1861.  183 

fore,  partisan — in  some  instances  passionately  partisan.  A 
store-house  of  materials  for  the  coming  historian  is  also  at 
hand  in  Frank  Moore's  great  collection,  the  Rebellion  Rec 
ord ;  in  numerous  regimental  histories  of  special  armies, 
departments,  and  battles,  like  W.  Swinton's  Army  of  the 
Potomac;  in  the  autobiographies  and  recollections  of  Grant 
and  Sherman  and  other  military  leaders;  in  the  "war 
papers,"  lately  published  in  the  Century  magazine,  and  in 
innumerable  sketches  and  reminiscences  by  officers  and  pri 
vates  on  both  sides. 

The  war  had  its  poetry,  its  humors,  and  its  general  litera 
ture,  some  of  which  have  been  mentioned  in  connection  with 
Whittier,  Lowell,  Holmes,  Whitman,  and  others,  and  some 
of  which  remain  to  be  mentioned,  as  the  work  of  new  writ 
ers,  or  of  writers  who  had  previously  made  little  mark. 
There  were  war-songs  on  both  sides,  few  of  which  had  much 
literary  value  excepting,  perhaps,  James  R.  Randall's  South 
ern  ballad,  Maryland,  My  Maryland,  sung'  to  the  old  col 
lege  air  of  Lauriger  Horatius;  and  the  grand  martial  chorus 
of  John  Brown's  Body,  an  old  Methodist  hymn,  to  which 
the  Northern  armies  beat  time  as  they  went  "  marching  on." 
Randall's  song,  though  spirited,  was  marred  by  its  fire-eating 
absurdities  about  "  vandals  "  and  "  minions  "  and  "  Northern 
scum,"  the  cheap  insults  of  the  Southern  newspaper  press. 
To  furnish  the  John  Brown  chorus  with  words  worthy  of 
the  music,  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  wrote  her  Battle- Hymn 
of  the  Republic,  a  noble  poem,'  but  rather  too  fine  and  liter 
ary  for  a  song,  and  so  never  fully  accepted  by  the  soldiers. 
Among  the  many  verses  which  voiced  the  anguish  and  the 
patriotism  of  that  stern  time,  which  told  of  partings  and 
home-comings,  of  women  waiting  by  desolate  hearths,  in 
country  homes,  for  tidings  of  husbands  and  sons  who  had 
gone  to  the  war;  or  which  celebrated  individual  deeds  of 
heroism  or  sang  the  thousand  private  tragedies  and  heart 
breaks  of  the  great  conflict,  by  far  the  greater  number  were 


184  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  too  humble  a  grade  to  survive  the  feeling  of  the  hour. 
Among  the  best  or  the  most  popular  of  them  were  Kate 
Putnam  Osgood's  Driving  Home  the  Cows,  Mrs.  Ethel  Lynn 
Beers's  All  Quiet  Along  the  Potomac,  Forceythe  Willson's 
Old  Sergeant,  and  John  James  Piatt's  Riding  to  Vote.  Of 
the  poets  whom  the  war  brought  out,  or  developed,  the  most 
noteworthy  were  Henry  Timrod,  of  South  Carolina,  and 
Henry  Howard  Brownell,  of  Connecticut.  During  the  war 
Timrod  was  with  the  Confederate  Army  of  the  West,  as  cor 
respondent  for  the  Charleston  Mercury,  and  in  1864  he  be 
came  assistant  editor  of  the  South  Carolinian,  at  Columbia. 
Sherman's  "  march  to  the  sea "  broke  up  his  business,  and 
he  returned  to  Charleston.  A  complete  edition  of  his  poems 
was  published  in  1873,  six  years  after  his  death.  The  pret 
tiest  of  all  Timrod's  poems  is  JKatie,  but  more  to  our  present 
purpose  are  Charleston — written  in  the  time  of  blockade — 
and  the  Unknown  Dead,  which  tells 

"  Of  nameless  graves  on  battle  plains, 
Wash'd  by  a  single  winter's  rains, 
Where,  some  beneath  Virginian  hills, 
And  some  by  green  Atlantic  rills, 
Some  by  the  waters  of  the  West, 
A  myriad  unknown  heroes  rest." 

When  the  war  was  over  a  poet  of  New  York  State,  F.  M. 
Finch,  sang  of  these  and  of  other  graves  in  his  beautiful  Dec 
oration  Day  lyric,  The  Blue  and  the  Gray,  which  spoke  the 
word  of  reconciliation  and  consecration  for  North  and  South 
alike. 

Brownell,  whose  Lyrics  of  a  Day  and  War  Lyrics  were 
published  respectively  in  1B64  and  1866,  was  private  secre 
tary  to  Farragut,  on  whose  flag-ship,  the  Hartford,  he  was 
present  at  several  great  naval  engagements,  such  as  the 
"  Passage  of  the  Forts  "  below  New  Orleans,  and  the  action 
off  Mobile,  described  in  his  poem,  the  Bay  Fight.  With 
some  roughness  and  unevenness  of  execution  Brownell's 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  185 

poetry  had  a  fire  which  places  him  next  to  Whittier  as  the 
Korner  of  the  civil  war.  In  him,  especially,  as  in  Whittier, 
is  that  Puritan  sense  of  the  righteousness  of  his  cause  which 
made  the  battle  for  the  Union  a  holy  war  to  the  crusaders 
against  slavery: 

"  Full  red  the  furnace  fires  must  glow 

That  melt  the  ore  of  mortal  kind: 
The  mills  of  God  are  grinding  slow, 

But  ah,  how  close  they  grind  1 

« 
"  To-day  the  Dahlgren  and  the  drum 

Are  dread  apostles  of  his  name ; 
His  kingdom  here  can  only  come 

By  chrism  of  blood  and  flame." 

One  of  the  earliest  martyrs  of  the  war  was  Theodore  Win- 
throp,  hardly  known  as  a  writer  until  the  publication  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  of  his  vivid  sketches  of  Washington  as  a 
Camp,  describing  the  march  of  his  regiment,  the  famous 
New  York  Seventh,  and  its  first  quarters  in  the  Capitol  at 
Washington.  A  tragic  interest  was  given  to  these  papers 
by  Winthrop's  gallant  death  in  the  action  of  Big  Bethel, 
June  10, 1861.  While  this  was  still  fresh  in  public  recollection 
his  manuscript  novels  were  published,  together  with  a  collec 
tion  of  his  stories  and  sketches  reprinted  from  the  magazines. 
His  novels,  though  in  parts  crude  and  immature,  have  a  dash 
and  buoyancy — an  out-door  air  about  them — which  give  the 
reader  a  winning  impression  of  Winthrop's  personality. 
The  best  of  them  is,  perhaps,  Cecil  Dreeme,  a  romance  that 
reminds  one  a  little  of  Hawthorne,  and  the  scene  of  which  is 
the  New  York  University  building  on  Washington  Square, 
a  locality  that  has  been  further  celebrated  in  Henry  James's 
novel  of  Washington  /Square. 

Another  member  of  this  same  Seventh  Regiment,  Fitz 
James  O'Brien,  an  Irishman  by  birth,  who  died  at  Baltimore 
in  1862  from  the  effects  of  a  wound  received  in  a  cavalry 


186  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

skirmish,  had  contributed  to  the  magazines  a  number  of 
poems  and  of  brilliant  though  fantastic  tales,  among  which 
the  Diamond  Lens  and  What  Was  It?  had  something  of 
Edgar  A.  Poe's  quality.  Another  Irish-American,  Charles 
G.  Halpine,  under  the  pen-name  of  "Miles  O'Reilly,"  wrote 
a  good  many  clever  ballads  of  the  war,  partly  serious  and 
partly  in  comic  brogue.  Prose  waiters  of  note  furnished  the 
magazines  with  narratives  of  their  experience  at  the  seat  of 
war,  among  papers  of  which  kind  may  be  mentioned  Dr. 
Jlolmes's  My  Search  for  the  Captain,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
and  Colonel  T.  W.  Higginson's  Army  Life  in  a  Black  Reyi- 
.ment,  collected  into  a  volume  in  1870. 

Of  the  public  oratory  of  the  war,  the  foremost  example  is 
the  ever-memorable  address  of  Abraham  Lincoln  at  the  ded 
ication  of  the  National  Cemetery  at  Gettysburg.  The  war 
had  brought  the  nation  to  its  intellectual  majority.  In  the 
stress  of  that  terrible  fight  there  was  no  room  for  buncombe 
and  verbiage,  such  as  the  newspapers  and  stump-speakers 
used  to  dole  out  in  ante  bellum  days.  Lincoln's  speech  is 
short — a  few  grave  words  which  he  turned  aside  for  a  mo 
ment  to  speak  in  the  midst  of  his  task  of  saving  the  country. 
The  speech  is  simple,  naked  of  figures,  every  sentence  im 
pressed  with  a  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  work  yet  to  be 
done  and  with  a  stern  determination  to  do  it.  "  In  a  larger 
sense,"  it  says,  "  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate, 
we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and 
dead,  who  struggled  here  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our 
poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note  nor 
long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget 
what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  ded 
icated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought 
here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to 
be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us;  that 
from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that 
cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion; 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  187 

that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have 
died  in  vain;  that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new 
birth  of  freedom;  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 
Here  was  eloquence  of  a  different  sort  from  the  sonorous  per 
orations  of  Webster  or  the  polished  climaxes  of  Everett.  As 
we  read  the  plain,  strong  language  of  this  brief  classic,  with  its 
solemnity,  its  restraint,  its  "brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity," 
we  seem  to  see  the  president's  homely  features  irradiated 
with  the  light  of  coming  martyrdom — 

"  The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 

Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American." 

Within  the  past  quarter  of  a  century  the  popular  school  of 
American  humor  has  reached  its  culmination.  Every  man 
of  genius  who  is  a  humorist  at  all  is  so  in  a  way  peculiar  to 
himself.  There  is  no  lack  of  individuality  in  the  humor  of 
Irving  and  Hawthorne  and  the  wit  of  Holmes  and  Lowell,  but 
although  they  are  new.  in  subject  and  application  they  are 
not  new  in  kind.  Irving,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  literary 
descendant  of  Addison.  .  The  character-sketches  in  Brace- 
bridge  Hall  are  of  the  same  family  with  Sir  Roger  de  Cover- 
ley  and  the  other  figures  of  the  Spectator  Club.  Knicker 
bocker's  History  of  N~ew  York,  though  purely  American  in 
its  matter,  is  not  distinctly  American  in  its  method,  which  is 
akin  to  the  mock  heroic  of  Fielding  and  the  irony  of  Swift  in 
the  Voyage  to  Lilliput.  Irving's  humor,  like  that  of  all  the 
great  English  humorists,  had  its  root  in  the  perception  of 
character — of  the  characteristic  traits  of  men  and  classes  of 
men,  as  ground  of  amusement.  It  depended  for  its  effect, 
therefore,  upon  its  truthfulness,  its  dramatic  insight  and 
sympathy,  as  did  the  humor  of  Shakespeare,  of  Sterne,  Lamb, 
and  Thackeray.  This  perception  of  the  characteristic,  when 
pushed  to  excess,  issues  in  grotesque  and  caricature,  as  in 


188  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

some  of  Dickens's  inferior  creations,  which  are  little  more 
than  personified  single  tricks  of  manner,  speech,  feature,  or 
dress.  Hawthorne's  rare  humor  differed  from  Irving's  in 
temper  but  not  in  substance,  and  belonged,  like  Irving's,  to 
the  English  variety.  Dr.  Holmes's  more  pronouncedly  comic 
verse  does  not  differ  specifically  from  the  facetiae,  of  Thomas 
Hood,  but  his  prominent  trait  is  wit,  which  is  the  laughter 
of  the  head  as  humor  is  of  the  heart.  The  same  is  true,  with 
qualifications,  of  Lowell,  whose  Biglow  Papers,  though  hu 
mor  of  an  original  sort  in  their  revelation  of  Yankee  charac 
ter,  are  essentially  satirical.  It  is  the  cleverness,  the  shrewd- 
ness  of  the  hits  in  the  Biglow  Papers,  their  logical,  that  is, 
witty  character,  as  distinguished  from  their  drollery,  that  ar 
rests  the  attention.  They  are  funny,  but  they  are  not  so 
funny  as  they  are  smarf.  In  all  these  writers  humor  was 
blent  with  more  serious  qualities,  which  gave  fineness  and 
literary  value  to  their  humorous  writings.  Their  view  of 
life  was  not  exclusively  comic.  But  there  has  been  a  class  of 
jesters,  of  professional  humorists,  in  America,  whose  product 
is  so  indigenous,  so  different,  if  not  in  essence,  yet  at  least  in 
form  and  expression,  from  any  European  humor,  that  it  may 
be  regarded  as  a  unique  addition  to  the  comic  literature  of 
the  world.  It  has  been  accepted  as  such  in  England,  where 
Artemus  Ward  and  Mark  Twain  are  familiar  to  multitudes 
who  have  never  read  the  One  Hoss-Shay  or  The  Courtin\ 
And  though  it  would  be  ridiculous  to  maintain  that  either  of 
these  writers  takes  rank  with  Lowell  and  Holmes,  or  to  deny 
that  there  is  an  amount  of  flatness  and  coarseness  in  many  of 
their  labored  fooleries  which  puts  large  portions  of  their 
writings  below  the  line  where  real  literature  begins,  still  it 
will  not  do  to  ignore  them  as  mere  buffoons,  or  even  to  pre 
dict  that  their  humors  will  soon  be  forgotten.  It  is  true  that 
no  literary  fashion  is  more  subject  to  change  than  the  fashion 
of  a  jest,  and  that  jokes  that  make  one  generation  laugh  seem 
insipid  to  the  next.  But  there  is  something  perennial  in  the 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  189 

fun  of  Rabelais,  whom  Bacon  called  "the  great  jester  of 
France;  "  and  though  the  puns  of  Shakespeare's  clowns  are 
detestable  the  clowns  themselves  have  not  lost  their  power 
to  amuse. 

The  Americans  are  not  a  gay  people,  but  they  are  fond  of 
a  joke.  Lincoln's  "little  stories"  were  characteristically 
Western,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  was  more  endeared  to 
the  masses  by  his  solid  virtues  than  by  the  humorous  percep 
tion  which  made  him  one  of  them.  The  humor  of  which  we 
are  speaking  now  is  a  strictly  popular  and  national  posses 
sion.  Though  America  has  never,  or  not  until  lately,  had  a 
comic  paper  ranking  with  Punch  or  Charivari  or  the  Flieg- 
ende  Blatter,  every  newspaper  has  had  its  funny  column. 
Our  humorists  have  been  graduated  from  the  journalist's  desk 
and  sometimes  from  the  printing-press,  and  now  and  then  a 
local  or  country  newspaper  has  risen  into  sudden  prosperity 
from  the  possession  of  a  new  humorist,  as  in  the  case  of 
G.  D.  Prentice's  Courier- Journal,  or  more  recently  of  the 
Cleveland  Plaindealer,  the  Danbury  News,  the  Burlington 
Hawkey  e,  the  Arkansaw  Traveller,  the  Texas  Sif tings,  and 
numerous  others.  Nowadays  there  are  even  syndicates  of 
humorists,  who  co-operate  to  supply  fun  for  certain  groups 
of  periodicals.  Of  course,  the  great  majority  of  these  manu 
facturers  of  jests  for  newspapers  and  comic  almanacs  are 
doomed  to  swift  oblivion.  But  it  is  not  so  certain  that  the 
best  of  the  class,  like  Clemens  and  Browne,  will  not  long 
continue  to  be  read  as  illustrative  of  one  side  of  the  Amer 
ican  mind,  or  that  their  best  things  will  not  survive  as  long  as 
the  mots  of  Sydney  Smith,  which  are  still  as  current  as  ever. 
One  of  the  earliest  of  them  was  Seba  Smith,  who,  under 
the  name  of  "  Major  Jack  Downing,"  did  his  best  to  make 
Jackson's  administration  ridiculous.  B.  P.  Shillaber's  "  Mrs. 
Partington" — a  sort  of  American  Mrs.  Mnlaprop — enjoyed 
great  vogue  before  the  war.  Of  a  somewhat  higher  kind 
were  the  Phcenixiana,  1855,  and  Squibob  Papers,  1856,  of 


190  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Lieutenant  George  II.  Derby,  "  John  Phrenix,"  one  of  the 
pioneers  of  literature  on  the  Pacific  coast  at  the  time  of  the 
California  gold  fever  of  '49.  Derby's  proposal  for  A  New 
System  of  English  Grammar,  his  satirical  account  of  the 
topographical  survey  of  the  two  miles  of  road  between  San 
Francisco  and  the  Mission  Dolores,  and  his  picture  gallery 
made  out  of  the  conventional  houses,  steam-boats,  rail-cars, 
runaway  Negroes,  and  other  designs  which  used  to  iigure  in 
the  advertising  columns  of  the  newspapers,  were  all  very  in 
genious  and  clever.  But  all  these  pale  before  Artemus  Ward 
— "  Artemus  the  delicious,"  as  Charles  Reade  called  him — 
who  first  secured  for  this  peculiarly  American  type  of  humor 
a  hearing  and  reception  abroad.  Ever  since  the  invention  of 
llosea  Biglow,  an  imaginary  personage  of  some  sort,  under 
cover  of  whom  the  author  might  conceal  his  own  identity, 
has  seemed  a  necessity  to  our  humorists.  Artemus  Ward 
was  a  traveling  showman  who  went  about  the  country  exhib 
iting  a  collection  of  wax  "figgers"  and  whose  experiences 
and  reflections  were  reported  in  grammar  and  spelling  of  a 
most  ingeniously  eccentric  kind.  His  inventor  was  Charles 
F.  Browne,  originally  of  Maine,  a  printer  by  trade  and  after 
ward  a  newspaper  writer  and  editor  at  Boston,  Toledo,  and 
Cleveland,  where  his  comicalities  in  the  Plaindealer  first  be 
gan  to  attract  notice.  In  1860  he  came  to  New  York  and 
joined  the  staff  of  Vanity  Fair,  a  comic  weekly  of  much 
brightness,  which  ran  a  short  career  and  perished  for  want 
of  capital.  When  Browne  began  to  appear  as  a  public  lect 
urer,  people  who  had  formed  an  idea  of  him  from  his  imper 
sonation  of  the  shrewd  and  vulgar  old  showman  were  sur 
prised  to  find  him  a  gentlemanly-looking  young  man,  who 
came  upon  the  platform  in  correct  evening  dress,  and  "  spoke 
his  piece  "  in  a  quiet  and  somewhat  mournful  manner,  stopping 
in  apparent  surprise  when  any  one  in  the  audience  laughed  at 
any  uncommonly  outrageous  absurdity.  In  London,  where 
he  delivered  his  Lecture'on  the  Mormons,  in  1866,  the  gravity 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.          %  191 

of  his  bearing  at  first  imposed  upon  his  hearers,  who  had 
come  to  the  hall  in  search  of  instructive  information  and 
were  disappointed  at  the  inadequate  nature  of  the  panorama 
which  Browne  had  had  made  to  illustrate  his  lecture.  Occa 
sionally  some  hitch  would  occur  in  the  machinery  of  this  and 
the  lecturer  would  leave  the  rostrum  for  a  few  moments  to 
u  work  the  moon "  that  shone  upon  the  Great  Salt  Lake, 
apologizing  on  his  return  on  the  ground  that  he  was  "  a  man 
short "  and  offering  "  to  pay  a  good  salary  to  any  respectable 
boy  of  good  parentage  and  education  who  is  a  good  moon- 
ist."  When  it  gradually  dawned  upon  the  British  intellect 
that  these  and  similar  devices  of  the  lecturer — such  as  the 
soft  music  which  he  had  the  pianist  play  at  pathetic  passages 
— nay,  that  the  panorama  and  even  the  lecture  itself  were  of 
a  humorous  intention,  the  joke  began  to  take,  and  Artemus's 
success  in  England  became  assured.  He  Avas  employed  as 
one  of  the  editors  of  Punch,  but  died  at  Southampton  in  the 
year  following. 

Some  of  Artemus  Ward's  effects  were  produced  by  cacog- 
raphy  or  bad  spelling,  but  there  was  genius  in  the  wildly  er 
ratic  way  in  which  he  handled  even  this  rather  low  order  of 
humor.  It  is  a  curious  commentary  on  the  wretchedness  of 
our  English  orthography  that  the  phonetic  spelling  of  a  word, 
as  for  example,  wuz  for  was,  should  be  in  itself  an  occasion  of 
mirth.  Other  verbal  effects  of  a  different  kind  were  among 
his  devices,  as  in  the  passage  where  the  seventeen  widows  of 
a  deceased  Mormon  offered  themselves  to  Artemus. 

"  And  I  said,  '  Why  is  this  thus?  What  is  the  reason  of 
this  thusness?'  They  hove  a  sigh — seventeen  sighs  of  dif 
ferent  size.  They  said  : 

"  t  O,  soon  thou  will  be  gonested  away.' 

"I  told  them  that  when  I  got  ready  to  leave  a  place  I 
wentested. 

"They  said,  'Doth  not  like  us  ?' 

"  I  said,  <  I  doth— I  doth.' 


192  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

"  I  also  said, '  I  hope  your  intentions  are  honorable,  as  I  am 
a  lone  child — my  parents  being  far — far  away.' 

"  They  then  said,  '  Wilt  not  marry  us  ? ' 

"'I  said,  '  O  no,  it  cannot  was.' 

"  When  they  cried,  'O  cruel  man!  this  is  too  much! — O! 
too  much,'  I  told  them  that  it  was  on  account  of  the  much 
ness  that  I  declined." 

It  is  hard  to  define  the  difference  between  the  humor  of 
one  writer  and  another,  or  of  one  nation  and  another.  It 
can  be  felt  and  can  be  illustrated  by  quoting  examples, 
but  scarcely  described  in  general  terms.  It  has  been  said 
of  that  class  of  American  humorists  of  which  Artemus 
Ward  is  a  representative  that  their  peculiarity  consists  in 
extravagance,  surprise,  audacity,  and  irreverence.  But  all 
these  qualities  have  characterized  other  schools  of  humor. 
There  is  the"  same  element  of  surprise  in  De  Quincey's  anti 
climax,  "  Many  a  man  has  dated  his  ruin  from  some  mur 
der  or  other  which,  perhaps,  at  the  time  he  thought  little 
of,"  as  in  Artemus's  truism  that  "  a  comic  paper  ought 
to  publish  a  joke  now  and  then."  The  violation  of  logic 
which  makes  us  laugh  at  an  Irish  bull  is  likewise  the  source 
of  the  humor  in  Artemus's  saying  of  Jeff  Davis,  that  "it 
would  have  been  better  than  ten  dollars  in  his  pocket  if 
he  had  never  been  born;"  or  in  his  advice,  "Always  live 
within  your  income,  even  if  you  have  to  borrow  money  to  do 
so  ; "  or,  again,  in  his  announcement  that  "  Mr.  Ward  will 
pay  no  debts  of  his  own  contracting."  A  kind  of  ludicrous 
confusion,  caused  by  an  unusual  collocation  of  words,  is  also 
one  of  his  favorite  tricks,  as  when  he  says  of  Brigham 
Young,  "He's  the  most  married  man  I  ever  saw  in  my  life;" 
or  when,  having  been  drafted  at  several  hundred  different 
places  where  he  had  been  exhibiting  his  wax  figures,  he  says 
that  if  he  went  on  he  should  soon  become  a  regiment,  and 
adds,  "I  never  knew  that  there  was  so  many  of  me."  With 
this  a  whimsical  understatement  and  an  affectation  of 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  193 

simplicity,  as  where  he  expresses  his  willingness  to  sacrifice 
"even  his  wife's  relations"  on  the  altar  of  patriotism;  or 
where,  in  delightful  unconsciousness  of  his  own  sins  against 
orthography,  he  pronounces  that  "  Chaucer  was  a  great  poet 
but  he  couldn't  spell,"  or  where  he  says  of  the  feast  of  raw 
dog,  tendered  him  by  the  Indian  chief,  Wocky-bocky,  "It 
don't  agree  with  me.  I  prefer  simple  food."  On  the  whole, 
it  may  be  said  of  original  humor  of  this  kind,  as  of  other 
forms  of  originality  in  literature,  that  the  elements  of  it  are 
old,  but  their  combinations  are  novel.  Other  humorists,  like 
Henry  W.  Shaw  ("Josh  Billings")  and  David  R  Locke 
("  Petroleum  V.  Nasby  "),  have  used  bad  spelling  as  a  part 
of  their  machinery;  while  Robert  H.  Newell  ("  Orpheus  C. 
Kerr"),  Samuel  L.  Clemens  ("Mark  Twain"),  and  more 
recently  "  Bill  Nye,"  though  belonging  to  the  same  school  of 
low  or  broad  comedy,  have  discarded  cacography.  Of  these 
the  most  eminent,  by  all  odds,  is  Mark  Twain,  who  has 
probably  made  more  people  laugh  than  any  other  living 
writer.  A  Missourian  by  birth  (1835),  he  served  the  usual 
apprenticeship  at  type-setting  and  editing  country  newspa 
pers;  spent  seven  years  as  a  pilot  on  a  Mississippi  steam 
boat,  and  seven  years  more  mining  and  journalizing  in 
Nevada,  where  he  conducted  the  Virginia  City  Enterprise; 
finally  drifted  to  San  Francisco,  and  was  associated  with 
Bret  Harte  on  the  Calif ornian,  and  in  1867  published  his 
first  book,  The  Jumping  Frog.  This  was  succeeded  by  the 
Innocents  Abroad,  1869;  Roughing  It,  1872;  A  Tramp 
Abroad,  1880,  and  by  others  not  so  good. 

Mark  Twain's  drolleries  have  frequently  the  same  air  of 
innocence  and  surprise  as  Artemus  Ward's,  and  there  is  a 
like  suddenness  in  his  turns  of  expression,  as  where  he  speaks 
of  "  the  calm  confidence  of  a  Christian  Avith  four  aces."  If 
he  did  not  originate,  he  at  any  rate  employed  very  effectively 
that  now  familiar  device  of  the  newspaper  "funny  man,"  of 
putting  a  painful  situation  euphemistically,  as  when  he  says 
13 


194  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  a  man  who  was  hanged  that  he  "received  injuries  which 
terminated  in  his  death."  He  uses  to  the  full  extent  the 
American  humorist's  favorite  resources  of  exaggeration  and 
irreverence.  An  instance  of  the  former  quality  may  be  seen 
in  his  famous  description  of  a  dog  chasing  a  coyote,  in 
Houghing  It,  or  in  his  interview  with  the  lightning-rod  agent 
in  Mark  Twain's  Sketches,  1875.  He  is  a  shrewd  observer, 
and  his  humor  has  a  more  satirical  side  than  Artemus  Ward's, 
sometimes  passing  into  downright  denunciation.  He  delights 
particularly  in  ridiculing  sentimental  humbug  and  moralizing 
cant.  He  runs  atilt,  as  has  been  said,  at  "  copy-book  texts," 
at  the  temperance  reformer,  the  tract  distributer,  the  Good 
Boy  of  Sunday-school  literature,  and  the  women  who  send 
bouquets  and  sympathetic  letters  to  interesting  criminals. 
He  gives  a  ludicrous  turn  to  famous  historical  anecdotes, 
such  as  the  story  of  George  Washington  and  his  little  hatchet; 
burlesques  the  time-honored  adventure,  in  nautical  romances, 
of  the  starving  crew  casting  lots  in  the  long-boat,  and  spoils 
the  dignity  of  antiquity  by  modern  trivialities,  saying  of  a 
discontented  sailor  on  Columbus's  ship,  "He  wanted  fresh 
shad."  The  fun  of  Innocents  Abroad  consists  in  this  irrev 
erent  application  of  modern,  common  sense,  utilitarian, 
democratic  standards  to  the  memorable  places  and  historic 
associations  of  Europe.  Tried  by  this  test  the  Old  Masters 
in  the  picture  galleries  become  laughable,  Abelard  was  a 
precious  scoundrel,  and  the  raptures  of  the  guide-books  are 
parodied  without  mercy.  The  tourist  weeps  at  the  grave  of 
Adam.  At  Genoa  he  drives  the  cicerone  to  despair  by  pre 
tending  never  to  have  heard  of  Christopher  Columbus,  and 
inquiring  innocently,  "  Is  he  dead  ?  "  It  is  Europe  vulgar 
ized  arid  stripped  of  its  illusions — Europe  seen  by  a  Western 
newspaper  reporter  without  any  "historic  imagination." 

The  method  of  this  whole  class  of  humorists  is  the  oppo 
site  of  Addison's  or  Irving's  or  Thackeray's.  It  does  not 
amuse  by  the  perception  of  the  characteristic.  It  is  not 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  195 

founded  upon  truth,  but  upon  incongruity,  distortion,  unex 
pectedness.  Every  thing  in  life  is  reversed,  as  in  opera 
bouffe,  and  turned  topsy-turvy,  so  that  paradox  takes  the 
place  of  the  natural  order  of  things.  Nevertheless  they 
have  supplied  a  wholesome  criticism  upon  sentimental  ex 
cesses,  and  the  world  is  in  their  debt  for  many  a  hearty 
laugh. 

In  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  December,  1863,  appeared  a 
tale  entitled  The  Man  Without  a  Country,  which  made  a 
great  sensation,  and  did  much  to  strengthen  patriotic  feel 
ing  in  one  of  the  darkest  hours  of  the  nation's  history.  It 
was  the  story  of  one  Philip  Nolan,  an  army  officer,  whose 
head  had  been  turned  by  Aaron  Burr,  and  who,  having  been 
censured  by  a  court-martial  for  some  minor  offense,  exclaimed 
petulantly,  upon  mention  being  made  of  the  United  States 
government,  "Damn  the  United  States!  I  wish  that  I  might 
never  hear  the  United  States  mentioned  again."  Thereupon 
he  was  sentenced  to  have  his  wish,  and  was  kept  all  his  life 
aboard  the  vessels  of  the  navy,  being  sent  off  on  long  voyages 
and  transferred  from  ship  to  ship,  with  orders  to  those  in 
charge  that  his  country  and  its  concerns  should  never  be 
spoken  of  in  his  presence.  Such  an  air  of  reality  was  given 
to  the  narrative  by  incidental  references  to  actual  persons 
and  occurrences  that  many  believed  it  true,  and  some  were 
found  who  remembered  Philip  Nolan,  but  had  heard  different 
versions  of  his  career.  The  author  of  this  clever  hoax — if 
hoax  it  may  be  called — was  Edward  Everett  Hale,  a  Uni 
tarian  clergyman  of  Boston,  who  published  a  collection  of 
stories  in  1868,  under  the  fantastic  title,  If,  Yes,  and  Per 
haps,  indicating  thereby  that  some  of  the  tales  were  possible, 
some  of  them  probable,  and  others  might  even  be  regarded  as 
essentially  true.  A  similar  collection,  His  Level  Best,  and 
Other  Stories,  was  published  in  1873,  and  in  the  interval  three 
volumes  of  a  somewhat  different  kind,  the  Ingham  Papers 
and  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes,  both  in  1869,  and  Ten  Times 


196  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

One  Is  Ten,  in  1871.  The  author  shelters  himself  behind 
the  imaginary  figure  of  Captain  Frederic  Ingham,  pastor  of 
the  Sandemanian  Church  at  Naguadavick,  and  the  same 
characters  have  a  way  of  re-appearing  in  his  successive  vol 
umes  as  old  friends  of  the  reader,  which  is  pleasant  at  first, 
but  in  the  end  a  little  tiresome.  Mr.  Hale  is  one  of  the 
most  original  and  ingenious  of  American  story- writers.  The 
old  device  of  making  wildly  improbable  inventions  appear 
like  fact  by  a  realistic  treatment  of  details — a  device  em 
ployed  by  Swift  and  Edgar  Poe,  and  more  lately  by  Jules 
Verne — became  quite  fresh  and  novel  in  his  hands,  and  was 
managed  with  a  humor  all  his  own.  Some  of  his  best  stories 
are  My  Double  and  How  He  Undid  Me,  describing  how  a 
busy  clergyman  found  an  Irishman  who  looked  so  much  like 
himself  that  he  trained  him  to  pass  as  his  duplicate,  and  sent 
him  to  do  duty  in  his  stead  at  public  meetings,  dinners,  etc., 
thereby  escaping  bores  and  getting  time  for  real  work;  the 
Brick  Moon,  a  story  of  a  projectile  built  and  launched  into 
space,  to  revolve  in  a  fixed  meridian  about  the  earth  and 
serve  mariners  as  a  mark  of  longitude;  the  Rag  Man  and 
Ray  Woman,  a  tale  of  an  impoverished  couple  who  made  a 
competence  by  saving  the  pamphlets,  advertisements,  wed 
ding-cards,  etc.,  that  came  to  them  through  the  mail,  and 
developing  a  paper  business  on  that  basis;  and  the  Skeleton 
in  the  Closet,  which  shows  how  the  fate  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy  was  involved  in  the  adventures  of  a  certain 
hoop-skirt,  "built  in  the  eclipse  and  rigged  with  curses 
dark."  Mr.  Hale's  historical  scholarship  and  his  habit  of 
detail  have  aided  him  in  the  art  of  giving  vraisemblance  to 
absurdities.  He  is  known  in  philanthropy  as  well  as  in  letters, 
and  his  tales  have  a  cheerful,  busy,  practical  way  with  them 
in  consonance  with  his  motto,  "  Look  up  and  not  down,  look 
forward  and  not  back,  look  out  and  not  in,  and  lend  a  hand." 
It  is  too  soon  to  sum  up  the  literary  history  of  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century.  The  writers  who  have  given  it  shape 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  197 

are  still  writing,  and  their  work  is  therefore  incomplete. 
But  on  the  slightest  review  of  it  two  facts  become  manifest: 
first,  that  New  England  has  lost  its  long  monopoly;  and, 
secondly,  that  a  marked  feature  of  the  period  is  the  growth 
of  realistic  fiction.  The  electric  tension  of  the  atmosphere 
for  thirty  years  preceding  the  civil  war,  the  storm  and  stress 
of  great  public  contests,  and  the  intellectual  stir  produced  by 
transcendentalism  seem  to  have  been  more  favorable  to  poe 
try  and  literary  idealism  than  present  conditions  are.  At 
all  events  there  are  no  new  poets  who  rank  with  Whittier, 
Longfellow,  Lowell,  and  others  of  the  elder  generation,  al 
though  George  H.  Boker,  in  Philadelphia,  R.  H.  Stoddard 
and  E.  C.  Stedman,  in  New  York,  and  T.  B.  Aldrich,  first  in 
New  York  and  afterward  in  Boston,  have  written  creditable 
verse;  not  to  speak  of  younger  writers,  whose  work,  how 
ever,  for  the  most  part,  has  been  more  distinguished  by  del 
icacy  of  execution  than  by  native  impulse.  Mention  has 
been  made  of  the  establishment  of  Harper's  Monthly  Maga 
zine^  which,  under  the  conduct  of  its  accomplished  editor, 
George  W.  Curtis,  has  provided  the  public  with  an  abun 
dance  of  good  reading.  The  old  Putnam's  Monthly ,  which 
ran  from  1853  to  1858,  and  had  a  strong  corps  of  contribu 
tors,  was  revived  in  1868,  and  continued  by  that  name  till 
1870,  when  it  was  succeeded  by  Scribner's  Monthly,  under 
the  editorship  of  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland,  and  this  in  1881  by  the 
Century,  an  efficient  rival  of  Harper's  in  circulation,  in  liter 
ary  excellence,  and  in  the  beauty  of  its  wood-engravings,  the 
American  school  of  which  art  these  two  great  periodicals  have 
done  much  to  develop  and  encourage.  Another  New  York 
monthly,  the  Galaxy,  ran  from  1866  to  1878,  and  was  edited 
by  Richard  Grant  White.  Within  the  last  few  years  a  new 
Scribner*s  Magazine  has  also  taken  the  field.  The  Atlantic, 
in  Boston,  and  Lippincotfs,  in  Philadelphia,  are  no  unwor 
thy  competitors  with  these  for  public  favor. 

During  the  forties  began  a  new  era  of  national  expansion, 


198  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

somewhat  resembling  that  described  in  a  former  chapter,  and, 
like  that,  bearing  fruit  eventually  in  literature.  The  cession 
of  Florida  to  the  United  States  in  1845,  and  the  annexation 
of  Texas  in  the  same  year,  were  followed  by  the  purchase  of 
California  in  1847,  and  its  admission  as  a  State  in  1850.  In 
1849  came  the  great  rush  to  the  California  gold  fields.  San 
Francisco,  at  first  a  mere  collection  of  tents  and  board  shan 
ties,  with  a  few  adobe  huts,  grew  with  incredible  rapidity 
into  a  great  city — the  wicked  and  wonderful  city  apostro 
phized  by  Bret  Harte  in  his  poem,  San  Francisco: 

"  Serene,  indifferent  of  fate, 
Thou  sittest  at  the  Western  Gate ; 
Upon  thy  heights  so  lately  won 
Still  slant  the  banners  of  the  sun.  .  .  . 
I  know  thy  cunning  and  thy  greed, 
Thy  hard,  high  lust  and  willful  deed." 

The  adventurers  of  all  lands  and  races  who  flocked  to  the 
Pacific  coast  found  there  a  motley  state  of  society  between 
civilization  and  savagery.  There  were  the  relics  of  the  old 
Mexican  occupation,  the  Spanish  missions,  with  their  Chris 
tianized  Indians;  the  wild  tribes  of  the  plains — Apaches, 
Utes,  and  Navajoes;  the  Chinese  coolies  and  washermen,  all 
elements  strange  to  the  Atlantic  sea-board  and  the  States  of 
the  interior.  The  gold-hunters  crossed,  in  stages  or  cara 
vans,  enormous  prairies,  alkaline  deserts  dotted  with  sage 
brush  and  seamed  by  deep  canons,  and  passes  through 
gigantic  mountain  ranges.  On  the  coast  itself  nature  was 
unfamiliar:  the  climate  was  subtropical;  fruits  and  vegeta 
bles  grew  to  a  mammoth  size,  corresponding  to  the  enormous 
redwoods  in  the  Mariposa  groves  and  the  prodigious  scale  of 
the  scenery  in  the  valley  of  the  Yosemite  and  the  snow 
capped  peaks  of  the  sierras.  At  first  there  were  few  women, 
and  the  men  led  a  wild,  lawless  existence  in  the  mining 
camps.  Hard  upon  the  heels  of  the  prospector  followed  the 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  199 

dram-shop,  the  gambling-hell,  and  the  dance-hall.  Every 
man  carried  his  "  Colt,"  and  looked  out  for  his  own  life  and 
his  "claim."  Crime  went  unpunished  or  was  taken  in  hand, 
when  it  got  too  rampant,  by  vigilance  committees.  In  the 
diggings  shaggy  frontiersmen  and  "pikes"  from  Missouri 
mingled  with  the  scum  of  eastern  cities  and  with  broken- 
down  business  men  and  young  college  graduates  seeking 
their  fortune.  Surveyors  and  geologists  came  of  necessity, 
speculators  in  mining  stock  and  city  lots  set  up  their  offices  in 
the  town;  later  came  a  sprinkling  of  school-teachers  and  min 
isters.  Fortunes  were  made  in  one  day  and  lost  the  next  at 
poker  or  loo.  To-day  the  lucky  miner  who  had  struck  a  good 
"  lead  "  was  drinking  champagne  out  of  pails  and  treating  the 
town;  to-morrow  he  was  "busted,"  and  shouldered  the  pick 
for  a  new  onslaught  upon  his  luck.  This  strange,  reckless 
life  was  not  without  fascination,  and  highly  picturesque  and 
dramatic  elements  were  present  in  it.  It  was,  as  Bret  Harte 
says,  "an  era  replete  with  a  certain  heroic  Greek  poetry,"  and 
sooner  or  later  it  was  sure  to  find  its  poet.  During  the  war 
California  remained  loyal  to  the  Union,  but  was  too  far  from 
the  seat  of  conflict  to  experience  any  serious  disturbance,  and 
went  on  independently  developing  its  own  resources  and 
becoming  daily  more  civilized.  By  1868  San  Francisco  had 
a  literary  magazine,  the  Overland  Monthly ',  which  ran  until 
1875,  and  was  revived  in  1883.  It  had  a  decided  local  flavor, 
and  the  vignette  on  its  title-page  was  a  happily  chosen  em 
blem,  representing  a  grizzly  bear  crossing  a  railway  tra'ck. 
In  an  early  number  of  the  Overland  was  a  story  entitled 
the  Luck  of  Hoar  in  <j  Camp,  by  Francis  Bret  Harte,  a  native 
of  Albany,  N.  Y.  (1835),  who  had  come  to  California  at  the 
age  of  seventeen,  in  time  to  catch  the  unique  aspects  of  the 
life  of  the  Forty-niners,  before  their  vagabond  communities 
had  settled  down  into  the  law-abiding  society  of  the  present 
day.  His  first  contribution  was  followed  by  other  stories 
and  sketches  of  a  similar  kind,  such  as  the  Outcasts  of  Poker 


200  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 


Miggles,  and  Tennessee's  Partner;  and  by  verses, 
serious  and  humorous,  of  which  last,  Plain  Language  from 
Truthful  James,  better  known  as  the  Heathen  Chinee,  made 
an  immediate  hit,  and  carried  its  author's  name  into  every 
corner  of  the  English-speaking  world.  In  1871  he  published 
a  collection  of  his  tales,  another  of  his  poems,  and  a 
volume  of  very  clever  parodies,  Condensed  Novels,  which 
rank  with  Thackeray's  Novels  by  Eminent  Hands.  Bret 
Harte's  California  stories  were  vivid,  highly  colored  pictures 
of  life  in  the  mining  camps  and  raw  towns  of  the  Pacific 
coast.  The  pathetic  and  the  grotesque  went  hand  in  hand 
in  them,  and  the  author  aimed  to  show  how  even  in  the  des 
perate  characters  gathered  together  there  —  the  fortune- 
hunters,  gamblers,  thieves,  murderers,  drunkards,  and  prosti 
tutes  —  the  latent  nobility  of  human  nature  asserted  itself 
in  acts  of  heroism,  magnanimity,  self-sacrifice,  and  touching 
fidelity.  The  same  men  who  cheated  at  cards  and  shot  each 
another  down  with  tipsy  curses  were  capable  on  occasion  of 
the  most  romantic  generosity  and  the  most  delicate  chivalry. 
Critics  were  not  wanting  who  held  that,  in  the  matter  of 
dialect  and  manners  and  other  details,  the  narrator  was  not 
true  to  the  facts.  This  was  a  comparatively  unimportant 
charge;  but  a  more  serious  question  was  the  doubt  whether 
his  characters  were  essentially  true  to  human  nature;  whether 
the  wild  soil  of  revenge  and  greed  and  dissolute  living  ever 
yields  such  flowers  of  devotion  as  blossom  in  Tennessee's 
Partner  and  the  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat.  However  this 
may  be,  there  is  no  question  as  to  Harte's  power  as  a  narra 
tor.  His  short  stories  are  skillfully  constructed  and  effect 
ively  told.  They  never  drag,  and  are  never  overladen  with 
description,  reflection,  or  other  lumber. 

In  his  poems  in  dialect  we  find  the  same  variety  of  types 
and  nationalities  characteristic  of  the  Pacific  coast:  the  little 
Mexican  maiden,  Pachita,  in  the  old  mission  garden;  the 
wicked  Bill  Nye,  who  tries  to  cheat  the  Heathen  Chinee 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  201 

at  eucher  and  to  rob  Injin  Dick  of  his  winning  lottery 
ticket;  the  geological  society  on  the  Stanislaw  who* 
settle  their  scientific  debates  with  chunks  of  old  red  sand 
stone  and  the  skulls  of  mammoths;  the  unlucky  Mr.  Dow, 
who  finally  strikes  gold  while  digging  a  well,  and  builds  a 
house  with  a  "coopilow;"  and  Flynn,  of  Virginia,  who 
saves  his  "  pard's  "  life,  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  own,  by  hold 
ing  up  the  timbers  in  the  caving  tunnel.  These  poems  are 
mostly  in  monologue,  like  Browning's  dramatic  lyrics,  ex 
clamatory  and  abrupt  in  style,  and  with  a  good  deal  of  in 
dicated  action,  as  in  Jim,  where  a  miner  comes  into  a  bar 
room,  looking  for  his  old  chum,  learns  that  he  is  dead,  and 
is  just  turning  away  to  hide  his  emotion  when  he  recog 
nizes  Jim  in  his  informant: 

"  Well,  thar— Good-bye- 
No  more,  sir— I — 

Eh? 

What's  that  you  say?— 
Why,  dern  it  I — shol — 
No?    Yes  I    ByJol 

Soldi 

Sold!    Why,  you  limb  I 
You  ornery, 

Denied  old 
Long-legged  Jim ! " 

Bret  Harte  had  many  imitators,  and  not  only  did  our  news 
paper  poetry  for  a  number  of  years  abound  in  the  properties 
of  Californian  life,  such  as  gulches,  placers,  divides,  etc.,  but 
writers  further  east  applied  his  method  to  other  conditions. 
Of  these  by  far  the  most  successful  was  John  Hay,  a  native 
of  Indiana  and  private  secretary  to  President  Lincoln,  whose 
Little  Breeches,  Jim  Bludso,  and  Mystery  of  Grilgal  have 
rivaled  Bret  Harte's  own  verses  in  popularity.  In  the  last- 
named  piece  the  reader  is  given  to  feel  that  there  is  some 
thing  rather  cheerful  and  humorous  in  a  bar-room  fight 


202  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

which  results  in  "  the  gals  that  winter,  as  a  rule,"  going 
"alone  to  singing  school."  In  the  two  former  we  have 
heroes  of  the  Bret  Harte  type,  the  same  combination  of  su 
perficial  wickedness  with  inherent  loyalty  and  tenderness. 
The  profane  farmer  of  the  South-west,  who  "  doesn't  pan  out 
on  the  prophets,"  and  who  had  taught  his  little  son  "to 
chaw  terbacker,  just  to  keep  his  milk-teeth  white,"  but  who 
believes  in  God  and  the  angels  ever  since  the  miraculous  re 
covery  of  the  same  little  son  when  lost  on  the  prairie  in  a 
blizzard;  and  the  unsaintly  and  bigamistic  captain  of  the 
Prairie  Belle,  who  died  like  a  hero,  holding  the  nozzle  of  his 
burning  boat  against  the  bank 

"  Till  the  last  galoot's  ashore." 

The  manners  and  dialect  of  other  classes  and  sections  of 
the  country  have  received  abundant  illustration  of  late  years. 
Edward  Eggleston's  Hoosier  Schoolmaster,  1871,  and  his 
other  novels  are  pictures  of  rural  life  in  the  early  days  of  In 
diana.  Western  Windows,  a  volume  of  poems  by  John 
James  Piatt,  another  native  of  Indiana,  had  an  unmistakable 
local  coloring.  Charles  G.  Leland,  of  Philadelphia,  in  his 
Hans  Breitmann  ballads,  in  dialect,  gave  a  humorous  pres 
entation  of  the  German- American  element  in  the  cities.  By 
the  death,  in  1881,  of  Sidney  Lanier,  a  Georgian  by  birth, 
the  South  lost  a  poet  of  rare  promise,  whose  original  genius 
was  somewhat  hampered  by  his  hesitation  between  two  arts 
of  expression,  music  and  verse,  and  by  his  effort  to  co-ordi 
nate  them.  His  Science  of  English  Verse,  1880,  was  a  most 
suggestive,  though  hardly  convincing,  statement  of  that 
theory  of  their  relation  which  he  was  working  out  in  his 
practice.  Some  of  his  pieces,  like  the  Mocking  Bird  and 
the  Song  of  the  Chattahoochie,  are  the  most  characteristically 
Southern  poetry  that  has  been  written  in  America.  Joel 
Chandler  Harris's  Uncle  Remus  stories,  in  Negro  dialect,  are 
transcripts  from  the  folk-lore  of  the  plantations,  while  his 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  20H 

collection  of  stories,  At  Teague  Poteetfs,  together  with  Miss 
Murfree's  In  the  Tennessee  Mountains  and  her  other  books, 
have  made  the  Northern  public  familiar  with  the  wild  life  of 
the  "  moonshiners,"  who  distill  illicit  whiskey  in  the  mount 
ains  of  Georgia,  North  Carolina,  and  Tennessee.  These 
tales  are  not  only  exciting  in  incident,  but  strong  and  fresh 
in  their  delineations  of  character.  Their  descriptions  of 
mountain  scenery  are  also  impressive,  though,  in  the  case  of 
the  last-named  writer,  frequently  too  prolonged.  George 
W.  Cable's  sketches  of  French  Creole  life  in  New  Orleans 
attracted  attention  by  their  freshness  and  quaintness  when 
published  in  the  magazines  and  re-issued  in  book  form  as 
Old  Creole  Days,  in  1879.  His  first  regular  novel,  the 
Grandissimes,  1880,  was  likewise  a  story  of  Creole  life.  It 
had  the  same  winning  qualities  as  his  short  stories  and 
sketches,  but  was  an  advance  upon  them  in  dramatic  force, 
especially  in  the  intensely  tragic  and  powerfully  told  episode 
of  "  Bras  Coupe."  Mr.  Cable  has  continued  his  studies  of 
Louisiana  types  and  ways  in  his  later  books,  but  the  Gran- 
dissimes  still  remains  his  masterpiece.  All  in  all,  he  is,  thus 
far,  the  most  important  literary  figure  of  the  New  South, 
and  the  justness  and  delicacy  of  his  representations  of  life 
speak  volumes  for  the  sobering  and  refining  agency  of  the 
civil  war  in  the  States  whose  "  cause  "  was  "  lost,"  but  whose 
true  interests  gained  even  more  by  the  loss  than  did  the  in 
terests  of  the  victorious  North. 

The  four  writers  last  mentioned  have  all  come  to  the  front 
within  the  past  eight  or  ten  years,  and,  in  accordance  with 
the  plan  of  this  sketch,  receive  here  a  mere  passing  notice. 
It  remains  to  close  our  review  of  the  literary  history  of  the 
period  since  the  war  with  a  somewhat  more  extended  ac 
count  of  the  two  favorite  novelists  whose  work  has  done 
more  than  any  thing  else  to  shape  the  movement  of  recent 
fiction.  These  are  Henry  James,  Jr.,  and  William  Dean 
Ho  wells.  Their  writings,  though  dissimilar  in  some  respects, 


204  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

are  alike  in  this,  that  they  are  analytic  in  method  and  real 
istic  in  spirit.  Cooper  was  a  romancer  pure  and  simple  ;  he 
wrote  the  romance  of  adventure  and  of  external  incident. 
Hawthorne  went  much  deeper,  and  with  a  finer  spiritual  in 
sight  dealt  with  the  real  passions  of  the  heart  and  with 
men's  inner  experiences.  This  he  did  with  truth  and  power; 
but,  although  himself  a  keen  observer  of  whatever  passed 
before  his  eyes,  he  was  not  careful  to  secure  a  photographic 
fidelity  to  the  surface  facts  of  speech,  dress,  manners,  etc. 
Thus  the  talk  of  his  characters  is  book-talk,  and  not  the 
actual  language  of  the  parlor  or  the  street,  with  its  slang,  its 
colloquial  ease  and  the  intonations  and  shadings  of  phrase 
and  pronunciation  which  mark  different  sections  of  the  coun 
try  and  different  grades  of  society.  His  attempts  at  dialect, 
for  example,  were  of  the  slenderest  kind.  His  art  is  ideal, 
and  his  romances  certainly  do  not  rank  as  novels  of  real  life. 
But  with  the  growth  of  a  richer  and  more  complicated  so 
ciety  in  America  fiction  has  grown  more  social  and  more 
minute  in  its  observation.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  classify 
the  novels  of  James  and  Howells  as  the  fiction  of  manners 
merely ;  they  are  also  the  fiction  of  character,  but  they  aim 
to  describe  people  not  only  as  they  are,  in  their  inmost  nat 
ures,  but  also  as  they  look  and  talk  and  dress.  They  try  to 
express  character  through  manners,  which  is  the  way  in 
which  it  is  most  often  expressed  in  the  daily  existence  of  a 
conventional  society.  It  is  a  principle  of  realism  not  to  se 
lect  exceptional  persons  or  occurrences,  but  to  take  average 
men  and  women  and  their  average  experiences.  The  realists 
protest  that  the  moving  incident  is  not  their  trade,  and  that 
the  stories  have  all  been  told.  They  want  no  plot  and  no 
hero.  They  will  tell  no  rounded  tale  with  a  denouement,  in 
which  all  the  parts  are  distributed,  as  in  the  fifth  act  of  an 
old-fashioned  comedy;  but  they  will  take  a  transcript  from 
life  and  end  when  they  get  through,  without  informing  the 
reader  what  becomes  of  the  characters.  And  they  will  try 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  205 

to  interest  this  reader  in  "  poor  real  life  "  with  its  "  foolish 
face."  Their  acknowledged  masters  are  Balzac,  George 
Eliot,  Turgenieff,  and  Anthony  Trollope,  and  -they  regard 
novels  as  studies  in  sociology,  honest  reports  of  the  writers' 
impressions,  which  may  not  be  without  a  certain  scientific 
value  even. 

Mr.  James's  peculiar  province  is  the  international  novel,  a 
field  which  he  created  for  himself,  but  which  he  has  occupied 
in  company  with  Howells,  Mrs.  Burnett,  and  many  others. 
The  novelist  received  most  of  his  schooling  in  Europe,  and 
has  lived  much  abroad,  with  the  result  that  he  has  become 
half  denationalized  and  has  engrafted  a  cosmopolitan  indif 
ference  upon  his  Yankee  inheritance.  This,  indeed,  has 
constituted  his  opportunity.  A  close  observer  and  a  con 
scientious  student  of  the  literary  art,  he  has  added  to  his  in 
tellectual  equipment  the  advantage  of  a  curious  doubleness 
in  his  point  of  view.  He  looks  at  America  with  the  eyes  of 
a  foreigner  and  at  Europe  with  the  eyes  of  an  American. 
He  has  so  far  thrown  himself  out  of  relation  with  American 
life  that  he  describes  a  Boston  horse-car  or  a  New  York 
hotel  table  with  a  sort  of  amused  wonder.  His  starting- 
point  was  in  criticism,  and  he  has  always  maintained  the 
critical  attitude.  He  took  up  story-writing  in  order  to  help 
himself,  by  practical  experiment,  in  his  chosen  art  of  literary 
criticism,  and  his  volume  on  French  Poets  and  Novelists, 
1878,  is  by  no  means  the  least  valuable  of  his  books.  His 
short  stories  in  the  magazines  were  collected  into  a  volume 
in  1875,  with  the  title,  A  Passionate  Pilgrim,  and  Other 
Stories.  One  or  two  of  these,  as  the  Last  of  the  Valerii  and 
the  Madonna  of  the  Future,  suggest  Hawthorne,  a  very  un 
sympathetic  study  of  whom  James  afterward  contributed  to 
the  "  English  Men  of  Letters  "  series.  But  in  the  name-story 
of  the  collection  he  was  already  in  the  line  of  his  future  de 
velopment.  This  is  the  story  of  a  middle-aged  invalid 
American  who  comes  to  England  in  search  of  health,  and 


206  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

finds,  too  late,  in  the  mellow  atmosphere  of  the  mother-coun 
try,  the  repose  and  the  congenial  surroundings  which  he  has 
all  his  life  been  longing  for  in  his  raw  America.  The  pathos 
of  his  self-analysis  and  his  confession  of  failure  is  subtly  imag 
ined.  The  impressions  which  he  and  his  far-away  English 
kinsfolk  make  on  one  another,  their  mutual  attraction  and 
repulsion,  are  described  with  that  delicate  perception  of  na 
tional  differences  which  makes  the  humor  and  sometimes  the 
tragedy  of  James's  later  books,  like  The  American,  Daisy 
Miller,  The  Europeans,  and  An  International  Episode.  His 
first  novel  was  Roderick  Hudson,  1876,  not  the  most  charac 
teristic  of  his  fictions,  but  perhaps  the  most  powerful  in  its 
grasp  of  elementary  passion.  The  analytic  method  and  the 
critical  attitude  have  their  dangers  in  imaginative  literature. 
In  proportion  as  this  writer's  faculty  of  minute  observation 
and  his  realistic  objectivity  have  increased  upon  him,  the  un 
comfortable  coldness  which  is  felt  in  his  youthful  work  has 
become  actually  disagreeable,  and  his  art — growing  con 
stantly  finer  and  surer  in  matters  of  detail — has  seemed  to 
dwell  more  and  more  in  the  region  of  mere  manners  and  less 
in  the  higher  realm  of  character  and  passion.  In  most  of  his 
writings  the  heart,  somehow,  is  left  out.  We  have  seen  that 
Irving,  from  his  knowledge  of  England  and  America,  and  his 
long  residence  in  both  countries,  became  the  mediator  be 
tween  the  two  great  branches  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race. 
This  he  did  by  the  power  of  his  sympathy  with  each.  Henry 
James  has  likewise  interpreted  the  two  nations  to  one  an 
other  in  a  subtler  but  less  genial  fashion  than  Irving,  and 
not  through  sympathy,  but  through  contrast,  by  bringing 
into  relief  the  opposing  ideals  of  life  and  society  which  have 
developed  under  different  institutions.  In  his  novel,  The 
American,  1877,  he  has  shown  the  actual  misery  which  may 
result  from  the  clashing  of  opposed  social  systems.  In  such 
clever  sketches  as  Daisy  Miller,  1879,  the  Pension  Beaure- 
^  and  A  Bundle  of  Letters,  he  has  exhibited  types  of  the 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  207 

American  girl,  the  American  business  man,  the  aesthetic 
f eebling  from  Boston,  and  the  Europeanized  or  would-be  dena 
tionalized  American  campaigners  in  the  Old  World,  and  has 
set  forth  the  ludicrous  incongruities,  perplexities,  and  misun 
derstandings  which  result  from  contradictory  standards  of 
conventional  morality  and  behavior.  In  The  Europeans^ 
1879,  and  An  International  Episode^  1878,  he  has  reversed 
the  process,  bringing  Old  World  standards  to  the  test  of 
American  ideas  by  transferring  his  dramatis  personal  to  re 
publican  soil.  The  last-named  of  these  illustrates  how  slen 
der  a  plot  realism  requires  for  its  purposes.  It  is  nothing 
more  than  the  history  of  an  English  girl  of  good  family  who 
marries  an  American  gentleman  and  undertakes-  to  live  in 
America,  but  finds  herself  so  uncomfortable  in  strange  social 
conditions  that  she  returns  to  England  for  life,  while,  con 
trariwise,  the  heroine's  sister  is  so  taken  with  the  freedom  of 
these  very  conditions  that  she  elopes  with  another  American 
and  "  goes  West."  James  is  a  keen  observer  of  the  physi 
ognomy  of  cities  as  well  as  of  men,  and  his  Portraits  of 
Places,  1884,  is  among  the  most  delightful  contributions  to 
the  literature  of  foreign  travel. 

Mr.  Howells's  writings  are  not  without  "international" 
touches.  In  A  Foregone  Conclusion  and  the  Lady  of  the 
Aroostook,  and  others  of  his  novels,  the  contrasted  points  of 
view  in  American  and  European  life  are  introduced,  and  es 
pecially  those  variations  in  feeling,  custom,  dialect,  etc., 
which  make  the  modern  Englishman  and  the  modern  Amer 
ican  such  objects  of  curiosity  to  each  other,  and  which  have 
been  dwelt  upon  of  late  even  unto  satiety.  But  in  general 
he  finds  his  subjects  at  home,  and  if  he  does  not  know  his 
own  countrymen  and  countrywomen  more  intimately  than 
Mr.  James,  at  least  he  loves  them  better.  There  is  a  warmer 
sentiment  in  his  fictions,  too;  his  men  are  better  fellows  and 
his  women  are  more  lovable.  Howells  was  born  in  Ohio. 
His  early  life  was  that  of  a  western  country  editor.  In  1 860  he 


208  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

published,  jointly  with  his  friend  Piatt,  a  book  of  verse — 
Poems  of  Two  Friends.  In  1861  he  was  sent  as  consul  to 
Venice,  and  the  literary  results  of  his  sojourn  there  appeared 
in  his  sketches,  Venetian  Life,  1865,  and  Italian  Journeys, 
1867.  In  1871  he  became  editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
and  in  the  same  year  published  his  Suburban  Sketches.  All 
of  these  early  volumes  showed  a  quick  eye  for  the  pict 
uresque,  an  unusual  power  of  description,  and  humor  of  the 
most  delicate  quality;  but  as  yet  there  was  little  approach  to 
narrative.  Their  Wedding  Journey  was  a  revelation  to  the 
public  of  the  interest  that  may  lie  in  an  ordinary  bridal  trip 
across  the  State  of  New  York,  when  a  close  and  sympathetic 
observation  is  brought  to  bear  upon  the  characteristics  of 
American  life  as  it  appears  at  railway  stations  and  hotels,  on 
steam-boats  and  in  the  streets  of  very  commonplace  towns. 
A  Chance  Acquaintance,  1873,  was  Howells's  first  novel, 
though  even  yet  the  story  was  set  against  a  background  of 
travel-pictures.  A  holiday  trip  on  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the 
Saguenay,  with  descriptions  of  Quebec  and  the  Falls  of 
Montmorenci,  etc.,  rather  predominated  over  the  narrative. 
Thus,  gradually  and  by  a  natural  process,  complete  char 
acters  and  realistic  novels,  such  as  A  Modern  Instance,  1882, 
and  Indian  Summer,  evolved  themselves  from  truthful 
sketches  of  places  and  persons  seen  by  the  way. 

The  incompatibility  existing  between  European  and  Amer 
ican  views  of  life,  which  makes  the  comedy  or  the  tragedy 
of  Henry  James's  international  fictions,  is  replaced  in  How 
ells's  novels  by  the  repulsion  between  differing  social  grades  in 
the  same  country.  The  adjustment  of  these  subtle  distinc 
tions  forms  a  part  of  the  problem  of  life  in  all  complicated 
societies.  Thus  in  A  Chance  Acquaintance  the  heroine  is  a 
bright  and  pretty  Western  girl,  who  becomes  engaged  dur 
ing  a  pleasure  tour  to  an  irreproachable  but  offensively  prig 
gish  young  gentleman  from  Boston,  and  the  engagement  is 
broken  by  her  in  consequence  of  an  unintended  slight — the 


LITERATURE  SIXCE  1861. 

betrayal  on  the  hero's  part  of  a  shade  of  mortification  when 
he  and  his  betrothed  are  suddenly  brought  into  the  presence 
of  some  fashionable  ladies  belonging  to  his  own  monde.  The 
little  comedy,  Out  of  the  Question,  deals  with  this  same 
adjustment  of  social  scales;  and  in  many  of  Howells's  other 
novels,  such  as  Silas  Laphani  and  the  Lady  of  the  Aroos- 
tooky  one  of  the  main  motives  may  be  described  to  be  the 
contact  of  the  man  who  eats  with  his  fork  with  the  man 
who  eats  with  his  knife,  and  the  shock  thereby  ensuing.  In 
Indian  Summer  the  complications  arise  from  the  difference 
in  age  between  the  hero  and  heroine,  and  not  from  a  differ 
ence  in  station  or  social  antecedents.  In  all  of  these  fictions 
the  misunderstandings  come  from  an  incompatibility  of  man 
ners  rather  than  of  character,  and,  if  any  thing  were  to  be 
objected  to  the  probability  of  the  story,  it  is  that  the  climax 
hinges  on  delicacies  and  subtleties  which,  in  real  life,  when 
there  is  opportunity  for  explanations,  are  readily  brushed 
aside.  But  in  A  Modern  Instance  Howells  touched  the 
deeper  springs  of  action.  In  this,  his  strongest  work,  the 
catastrophe  is  brought  about,  as  in  George  Eliot's  great 
novels,  by  the  reaction  of  characters  upon  one  another,  and 
the  story  is  realistic  in  a  higher  sense  than  any  mere  study 
of  manners  can  be.  His  nearest  approach  to  romance  is  in 
The  Undiscovered  Country,  1880,  which  deals  with  the  Spir 
itualists  and  the  Shakers,  and  in  its  study  of  problems  that 
hover  on  the  borders  of  the  supernatural,  in  its  out-of-the- 
way  personages  and  adventures,  and  in  a  certain  ideal  poetic 
flavor  about  the  whole  book,  has  a  strong  resemblance  to 
Hawthorne,  especially  to  Hawthorne  in  the  Blithedale  Ilo- 
mance,  where  he  comes  closer  to  common  ground  with  other 
romancers.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  Undiscovered 
Country  with  Henry  James's  Bostonians,  the  latest  and  one 
of  the  cleverest  of  his  fictions,  which  is  likewise  a  study  of 
the  clairvoyants,  mediums,  woman's  rights  advocates,  and 
all  varieties  of  cranks,  reformers,  and  patrons  of  "  causes," 
14 


210  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

for  whom  Boston  has  long  been  notorious.  A  most  un 
lovely  race  of  people  they  become  under  the  cold  scrutiny  of 
Mr.  James's  cosmopolitan  eyes,  which  see  more  clearly  the 
charlatanism,  narrow-mindedness,  mistaken  fanaticism,  mor 
bid  self-consciousness,  disagreeable  nervous  intensity,  and  vul 
gar  or  ridiculous  outside  peculiarities  of  the  humanitarians, 
than  the  nobility  and  moral  enthusiasm  which  underlie  the 
surface. 

Hovvells  is  almost  the  only  successful  American  dramatist, 
and  this  in  the  field  of  parlor  comedy.  His  little  farces,  the 
Elevator,  the  Register,  the  Parlor-  Car,  etc.,  have  a  lightness 
and  grace,  with  an  exquisitely  absrud  situation,  which  remind 
us  more  of  the  Comedies  et  Proverbes  of  Alfred  de  Musset, 
or  the  many  agreeable  dialogues  and  monologues  of  the 
French  domestic  stage,  than  of  any  work  of  English  or 
American  hands.  His  softly  ironical  yet  affectionate  treat 
ment  of  feminine  ways  is  especially  admirable.  In  his  numer 
ous  types  of  sweetly  illogical,  inconsistent,  and  inconsequent 
womanhood  he  has  perpetuated  with  a  nicer  art  than  Dickens 
what  Thackeray  calls  "  that  great  discovery,"  Mrs.  Nickleby. 


1.  Theodore    Winthrop.     Life  in  the    Open  Air.      Cecil 
Dreeme. 

2.  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson.     Life  in  a  Black  Reg 
iment. 

3.  Poetry  of  the    Civil  War.     Edited  by  Richard  Grant 
White.     New  York.    1866. 

4.  Charles  Farrar   Browne.     Artemus  Ward — His  Book. 
Lecture  on  the  Mormons.     A  rtemus  Ward  in  London. 

5.  Samuel    Langhorne    Clemens.      T/te    Jumping    Frog. 
Houghing  It.     The  Mississippi  Pilot. 

6.  Charles  Godfrey  Lei  and.     Hans  Breitnwnrfs  Ballads. 
1.  Edward    Everett    Hale.     If,    Yes,  and  Perhaps.     His 

Level  Best,  and  Other  Stories. 


LITERATURE  SINCE  1861.  211 

8.  Francis  Bret  Harte.     Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,  and  Other 
Stories.      Condensed  Novels.     Poems  in  Dialect. 

9.  Sidney    Lanier.     Nirvana.     Resurrection.      T/te   Har 
lequin  of  Dreams.     Sony  of  the  Chattahoochie.     The  Mock 
ing  Bird.      The  Stirrup  -  Cup.      Tampa  Robins.      The  Bee. 
The  Revenye  of  Ilamish.     The  Ship  of  Eartli.     The  Marsh 
es  of  Glynn.     Sunrise. 

10.  Henry  James,  Jr.     A  Passionate  Pilyrim.     Roderick 
Hudson.     Daisy  Miller.     Pension  Beaurepas.     A    Bundle 
of  Letters.     An   International  Episode.     T/te   Bosnians. 
Portraits  of  Places. 

11.  William   Dean    Howells.      Their    Wedding    Journey. 
Suburban  Sketches.     A  Chance  Acquaintance.     A  Foregone 
Conclusion.      T/te    Undiscovered   Country.     A  Modern  In,* 
stance. 

12.  George  W.  Cable.      Old  Creole  Days.     Madame  Del- 
phine.     T/te  Grandissimes. 

13.  Joel    Chandler  Harris.      Uncle  Remus.     Minyo,  and 
Other  SketcJtes. 

14.  Charles   Egbert    Craddock    (Miss   Murfree).     In   the 
Tennessee  Mountains. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX. 


COTTON    MATHER. 

CAPTAIN  PIIIPS  AND  THE  SPANISH  WRECK. 

[From  Magnalia  Christi  Americana.] 

CAPTAIN  PIIIPS,  arriving  with  a  ship  and  a  tender  at  Port  do  la  Plata, 
made  a  stout  canoo  of  a  stately  cotton-tree,  so  large  as  to  carry  eight  or  ten 
oars,  for  the  making  of  which  periaga  (as  they  call  it)  he  did,  with  the  sumo 
industry  that  he  did  every  thing  else,  employ  his  own  hand  and  adze,  and 
endure  no  little  hardship,  lying  abroad  in  the  woods  many  nights  together. 
This  periaga  with  the  tender,  being  anchored  at  a  place  convenient,  the 
periaga  kept  busking  to  and  again,1  but  could  only  discover  a  reef  of  rising 
shoals  thereabouts,  called  "  The  Boilers,"  which,  rising  to  bo  within  two  or 
three  feet  of  the  surface  of  the  sea,  were  yet  so  steep  that  a  ship  striking  on 
them  would  immediately  sink  down,  who  could  say  how  many  fathom,  into 
the  ocean.  Here  they  could  get  no  other  pay  for  their  long  peeping  among 
the  Boilers,  but  only  such  as  caused  them  to  think  upon  returning  to  their 
captain  with  the  bad  news  of  their  total  disappointment.  Nevertheless,  as 
they  were  upon  their  return,  one  of  the  men,  looking  over  the  side  of  the 
periaga  into  the  calm  water,  he  spied  a  sea-feather  growing,  as  he  judged, 
out  of  a  rock;  whereupon  he  bade  one  of  their  Indians  to  dive  and  fetch 
this  feather,  that  they  might,  however,  carry  home  something  with  them, 
and  make  at  least  as  fair  a  triumph  as  Caligula's.2  The  diver,  bringing  up 
the  feather,  brought  therewithal  a  surprising  story,  that  he  perceived  a 
number  of  great  guns  in  the  watery  world  where  he  had  found  his  feather; 
the  report3  of  which  great  guns  exceedingly  astonished  the  whole  company, 
and  at  once  turned  their  despondencies  for  their  ill  success  into  assurances 
that  they  had  now  lit  upon  the  true  spot  of  ground  which  they  had  been 
looking  for;  and  they  were  further  confirmed  in  these  assurances  when, 

1  Passing  to  and  fro. 

8  The  Roman  emperor  who  invaded  Britain  unsuccessfully  and  made  his  legionaries 
gather  sea-shells  to  bring  back  witli  them  as  evidences  of  victory. 
3  One  of  Mather's  puns. 


216  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

upon  further  diving,  the  Indian  fetched  np  a  sow,  as  they  styled  it,  or  a  lump 
of  silver  worth  perhaps  two  or  three  hundred  pounds.  Upon  this  they  pru 
dently  buoyed  the  place  that  they  might  readily  find  it  again;  and  they 
went  back  unto  their  captain,  whom  for  some  while  they  distressed  with 
nothing  but  such  bad  news  as  they  formerly  thought  they  must  have  carried 
him.  Nevertheless,  they  so  slipped  in  the  sow  of  silver  on  one  side  under  the 
table,  where  they  were  now  sitting  with  the  captain,  and  hearing  him  ex 
press  his  resolutions  to  wait  still  patiently  upon  the  providence  of  God  un 
der  these  disappointments,  that  when  he  should  look  on  one  side  he  might 
see  that  odd  thing  before  him.  At  last  he  saw  it.  Seeing  it  he  cried  out 
with  some  agony,  "Why!  what  is  this?  "Whence  comes  this?"  And 
then,  with  changed  countenances,  they  told  him  how  and  where  they  got 
it.  "  Then,"  said  he,  "  thanks  be  to  God  !  We  are  made ;  "  and  so  away 
they  went  all  hands  to  work ;  wherein  they  had  this  one  further  piece  of 
remarkable  prosperity,  that  whereas  if  they  had  first  fallen  upon  that  part 
of  the  Spanish  wreck  where  the  pieces  of  eight1  had  been  stowed  in 
bags  among  the  ballast  they  had  seen  a  more  laborious  and  less  enriching 
time  of  it ;  now,  most  happily,  they  first  fell  upon  that  room  in  the 
wreck  where  the  bullion  had  been  stored  up ;  and  they  so  prospered  in 
this  new  fishery  that  in  a  little  while  they  had,  without  the  loss  of  any 
man's  life,  brought  up  thirty-two  tuns  of  silver ;  for  it  was  now  come 
to  measuring  of  silver  by  tuns.  Besides  which,  one  Adderly,  of  Provi 
dence,  who  had  formerly  been  very  helpful  to  Captain  Phips  in  the 
search  of  this  wreck,  did,  upon  former  agreement,  meet  him  now  with  a 
little  vessel  here ;  and  he  with  his  few  hands,  took  np  about  six  tuns  of 
silver ;  whereof,  nevertheless,  he  made  so  little  use  that  in  a  year  or  two 
he  died  at  Bermudas,  and,  as  I  have  heard,  he  ran  distracted  some  while 
before  he  died. 

Thus  did  there  once  again  come  into  the  light  of  the  sun  a  treasure 
which  had  been  half  an  hundred  years  groaning  under  the  waters ;  and 
in  this  time  there  was  grown  upon  the  plate  a  crust-like  limestone,  to 
the  thickness  of  several  inches;  which  crust  being  broken  open  by  iron 
contrived  for  that  purpose,  they  knocked  out  whole  bushels  of  rusty 
pieces  of  eight  which  were  grown  thereinto.  Besides  that  incredible 
treasure  of  plate  in  various  forms  thus  fetched  up  from  seven  or  eight 
fathom  under  water,  there  were  vast  riches  of  gold,  arid  pearls,  and  jewels, 
which  they  also  lit  upon ;  and,  indeed,  for  a  more  comprehensive  invoice, 
I  must  but  summarily  say,  "All  that  a  Spanish  frigate  uses  to  be  en 
riched  withal." 

1  Spanish  piasters,  formerly  divided  into  eight  reals.  The  piaster  =•  an  American 
dollar. 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS.  217 

JONATHAN   EDWARDS. 

THE   BEAUTY    OF   HOLINESS. 

[From  the  author's  Personal  Narrative.] 

HOLINESS,  as  I  then  wrote  down  some  of  my  contemplations  on  it,  ap 
peared  to  me  to  be  of  a  sweet,  pleasant,  charming,  serene,  calm  nature ; 
which  brought  an  inexpressible  purity,  brightness,  peacefulness,  and  ravish 
ment  to  the  soul.  In  other  words,  that  it  made  the  soul  like  a  field  or  gar 
den  of  God,  with  all  manner  of  pleasant  flowers;  enjoying  a  sweet  calm 
and  the  gently  vivifying  beams  of  the  sun.  The  soul  of  a  true  Christian,  as 
I  then  wrote  my  meditations,  appeared  like  such  a  little  white  flower  as  we 
see  in  the  spring  of  the  year;  low  and  humble  on  the  ground,  opening  its 
bosom  to  receive  the  pleasant  beams  of  the  sun's  glory  ;  rejoicing,  as  it 
were,  in  a  calm  rapture;  diffusing  around  a  sweet  fragrancy;  standing 
peacefully  and  lovingly  in  the  midst  of  other  flowers  round  about ;  all  in 
like  manner  opening  their  bosoms  to  drink  in  the  light  of  the  sun.  There 
was  no  part  of  creature-holiness  that  I  had  so  great  a  sense  of  its  loveliness 
as  humility,  brokenness  of  heart,  and  poverty  of  spirit;  and  there  was 
nothing  that  I  so  earnestly  longed  for.  My  heart  panted  after  this — to  lie 
low  before  God,  as  in  the  dust;  that  I  might  be  nothing,  and  that  God- 
might  be  all ;  that  I  might  become  as  a  little  child. 

THE  WRATH  OF  GOD. 

[From  Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry  God.] 

UNCONVERTED  men  walk  over  the  pit  of  hell  on  a  rotten  covering,  and 
there  are  innumerable  places  in  this  covering  so  weak  that  they  will  not 
bear  their  weight,  and  these  places  are  not  seen.  The  arrows  of  death  fly 
unseen  at  noonday ;  the  sharpest  sight  cannot  discern  them.  God  has  so 
many  different,  unsearchable  ways  of  taking  wicked  men  out  of  the  world  and 
sending  them  to  hell  that  there  is  nothing  to  make  it  appear  that  God  had 
need  to  be  at  the  expense  of  a  miracle,  or  go  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of 
his  providence,  to  destroy  any  wicked  man  at  any  moment.  .  .  .  Your 
wickedness  makes  you  as  it  were  heavy  as  lead  and  to  tend  downward  with 
great  weight  and  pressure  toward  hell;  and,  if  God  should  let  you  go,  you 
would  immediately  sink  and  swiftly  descend  and  plunge  into  the  bottomless 
gulf,  and  your  healthy  constitution,  and  your  own  care  and  prudence,  and 
best  contrivance,  and  all  your  righteousness,  would  have  no  more  influence 
to  uphold  you  and  keep  you  out  of  hell  than  a  spider's  web  would  have  to 
stop  a  falling  rock.  .  .  .  There  are  the  black  clouds  of  God's  wrath  now 


218  INITIAL  STUDIES  ix  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Kinging;  directly  over  your  heads,  full  of  the  dreadful  storm  and  big-  with 
thunder;  and  were  it  not  for  the  restraining  hand  of  God  it  would  im 
mediately  burst  forth  upon  you.  The  sovereign  pleasure  of  God,  for  the 
present,  stays  his  rough  wind ;  otherwise  it  would  come  with  fury,  and 
your  destruction  would  come  like  a  whirlwind,  and  you  would  be  like  the 
chaff  of  the  summer  threshing-floor.  The  wrath  of  God  is  like  great  wa 
ters  that  are  dammed  for  the  present ;  they  increase  more  and  more,  and 
rise  higher  and  higher,  till  an  outlet  is-  given ;  and  the  longer  the  stream 
is  stopped,  the  more  rapid  and  mighty  is  its  course  when  once  it  is  let 
loose.  .  .  . 

Thus  it  will  be  with  you  that  are  in  an  unconverted  state,  if  you  continue 
in  it;  the  infinite  might  and  majesty  and  terribleness  of  the  omnipotent 
God  shall  be  magnified  upon  you  in  the  ineffable  strength  of  your  torments; 
you  shall  be  tormented  in  the  presence  of  the  holy  angels  and  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  Lamb;  and,  when  you  shall  be  in  this  state  of  suffering,  the 
glorious  inhabitants  of  heaven  shall  go  forth  and  look  on  the  awful  specta 
cle,  that  they  may  see  what  the  wrath  and  fierceness  of  the  Almighty  is ; 
and  when  they  have  seen  it  they  will  fall  down  and  adore  that  great  power 
and  majesty.  "  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  from  one  moon  to  another, 
and  from  one  Sabbath  to  another,  shall  all  flesh  come  to  worship  before  mo, 
saith  the  Lord.  And  they  shall  go  forth  and  look  upon  the  carcasses  of  the 
men  that  have  transgressed  against  me;  for  their  worm  shall  not  dio, 
neither  shall  their  fire  be  quenched,  and  they  shall  be  an  abhorring  unto  all 
flesh." 

It  is  everlasting  wrath.  Tt  would  be  dreadful  to  suffer  this  fierceness 
and  wrath  of  Almighty  God  one  moment ;  but  you  must  suffer  it  to  all 
eternity;  there  will  be  no  end  to  this  exquisite,  horrible  misery;  when  you 
look  forward  you  shall  see  along  forever,  a  boundless  duration  before  you, 
which  will  swallow  up  your  thoughts  and  amaze  your  soul;  and  you  will 
absolutely  despair  of  ever  having  any  deliverance,  any  end,  any  mitigation, 
any  rest  at  all ;  you  will  know  certainly  that  yon  must  wear  out  long  ages, 
millions  of  millions  of  ages,  in  wrestling  and  conflicting  with  this  Almighty 
merciless  vengeance;  and  then,  when  you  have  so  done,  when  .so  many  ages 
have  actually  been  spent  by  you  in  this  manner,  you  will  know  that  all  is 
but  a  point  to  what  remains.  So  that  your  punishment  will  indeed  be  in 
finite.  ...  If  we  knew  that  there  was  one  person,  and  but  one,  in  the  whole 
congregation,  that  was  to  be  the  subject  of  this  misery,  what  an  awful  thing 
it  would  be  to  think  of!  If  we  knew  who  it  was,  what  an  awful  sight 
would  it  be  to  see  such  a  person !  How  might  all  the  rest  of  the  congrega 
tion  lift  up.  a  lamentable  and  bitter  cry  over  him!  But  alas!  Instead  of 
one,  how  many  is  it  likely  will  remember  this  discourse  in  hell!  And  it 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS.  219 

would  be  a  wonder  if  some  that  are  now  present  should  not  be  in  hell  in  a 
very  short  time,  before  this  year  is  out.  And  it  would  be  no  wonder  if 
some  persons,  that  now  sit  here  in  some  seats  of  this  meeting-bouse  in  health, 
and  quiet,  and  secure,  should  be  there  before  to-morrow  morning. 


sea. 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN. 

FRANKLIN'S  ARRIVAL  AT  PHILADELPHIA. 

[From  Hie  Life  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  Written  by  Himself.} 
I  WAS  in  my  working  dress,  my  best  clothes  being  to  come  round  by 
I  was  dirty  from  my  journey  ;  my  pockets  were  stuffed  out  with  shirts  and 
stockings,  and  I  knew  no  soul  nor  where  to  look  for  lodging.  I  was  fatigued 
with  traveling,  rowing,  and  want  of  rest ;  I  was  very  hungry  ;  and  my 
whole  stock  of  cash  consisted  of  a  Dutch  dollar  and  about  a  shilling  in  cop 
per.  The  latter  I  gave  the  people  of  the  boat  for  my  passage,  who  at  first 
refused  it,  on  account  of  my  rowing;  but  I  insisted  on  their  taking  it,  a 
man  being  sometimes  more  generous  when  he  has  but  a  little  money  than 
when  he  has  plenty,  perhaps  through  fear  of  being  thought  to  have  but 
little. 

Then  I  walked  up  the  street,  gazing  abont,  till  near  the  market-house  I 
met  a  boy  with  bread.  I  had  made  many  a  meal  on  bread,  and,  inquiring 
where  he  got  it,  I  went  immediately  to  the  baker's  he  directed  mo  to,  in 
Second  Street,  and  asked  for  biscuit,  intending  such  as  we  had  in  Boston ; 
but  they,  it  seems,  were  not  made  in  Philadelphia.  Then  I  asked  for  a 
three-penny  loaf,  and  was  told  they  had  none  such.  So,  not  considering  or 
knowing  the  difference  of  money,  and  the  greater  cheapness,  nor  the^names 
of  his  bread,  I  had  him  give  me  three-penny  wortli  of  any  sort.  lie  gave 
me,  accordingly,  three  great  puffy  rolls.  I  was  surprised  at  the  quantity,  but 
took  it,  and,  having  no  room  in  my  pockets,  walked  off  with  a  roll  under 
each  arm,  and  eating  the  other.  Thus  I  went  up  Market  Street  as  far  as 
Fourth  Street,  passing  by  the  door  of  Mr.  Read,  my  future  wife's  father, 
when  she,  standing  at  the  door,  saw  me,  and  thought  I  made,  as  I  certainly 
did,  a  most  awkward,  ridiculous  appearance.  Then  I  turned  and  wont 
down  Chestnut  Street  and  part  of  Walnut  Street,  eating  my  roll  all  the  way 
and,  coming  round,  found  myself  again  at  Market  Street  wharf,  near  the 
boat  I  came  in,  to  which  T  went  for  a  draught  of  the  river  water;  and,  be 
ing  filled  with  one  of  my  rolls,  gave  the  other  two  to  a  woman  and  her 
Child  that  came  down  the  river  in  the  boat  with  us,  and  were  waiting  to  go 
farther. 


220  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Thus  refreshed,  I  walked  again  up  the  street,  which  by  this  time  had 
many  clean-dressed  people  in  it,  who  were  all  walking  the  same  way.  I 
joined  them,  and  thereby  was  led  into  the  great  meeting-house  of  the  Quak 
ers  near  the  market.  I  sat  down  among  them,  and,  after  looking  'round 
a  while  and  hearing  nothing  said,  being  very  drowsy  through  labor  and  want 
of  rest  the  preceding  night,  I  fell  fast  asleep,  and  continued  so  till  the 
meeting  broke  up,  when  one  was  kind  enough  to  rouse  me.  This  was, 
therefore,  the  first  house  I  was  in,  or  slept  in,  in  Philadelphia. 

Walking  down  again  toward  the  river,  and  looking  in  the  faces  of  the 
people,  I  met  a  young  Quaker  man  whose  countenance  I  liked,  and,  accost 
ing  him,  requested  he  would  tell  me  where  a  stranger  could  get  lodging. 
"We  were  near  the  sign  of  the  Three  Mariners.  "Here,"  says  he,  "is  one 
place  that  entertains  strangers,  but  it  is  not  a  reputable  house ;  if  thee  wilt 
walk  with  me,  I'll  show  thee  a  better."  He  brought  me  to  the  Crooked  Bil 
let  in  Water  Street.  Here  I  got  a  dinner. 

PAYING  Too  DEAR  FOR  THE  WHISTLE. 

[From  Correspondence  with  Madame  Britton.] 

I  AM  charmed  with  your  description  of  Paradise,  and  with  your  plan  of 
living  there;  and  I  approve  much  of  your  conclusion,  that,  in  the  meantime, 
we  should  draw  all  the  good  we  can  from  this  world.  In  my  opinion  we 
might  all  draw  more  good  from  it  than  we  do,  and  suffer  less  evil,  if  we 
would  take  care  not  to  give  too  much  for  whistles,  for  to  me  it  seems  that 
most  of  the  unhappy  people  we  meet  with  are  become  so  by  neglect  of  that 
caution. 

You  ask  what  I  mean  ?  You  love  stories,  and  will  excuse  my  telling  one 
of  myself. 

When  I  was  a  child  of  seven  years  old  my  friends,  on  a  holiday,  filled 
my  pocket  with  coppers.  I  went  directly  to  a  shop  where  they  sold  toys 
for  children,  and,  being  charmed  with  the  sound  of  a  whistle,  that  I  met  by 
the  way  in  the  hands  of  another  boy,  I  voluntarily  offered  and  gave  all  my 
money  for  one.  I  then  came  home,  and  went  whistling  all  over  the  house, 
much  pleased  with  my  whistle,  but  disturbing  all  the  family.  My  brothers 
and  sisters  and  cousins,  understanding  the  bargain  I  had  made,  told  me  I 
had  given  four  times  as  much  for  it  as  it  was  worth;  put  me  in  mind  what 
good  things  I  might  have  bought  with  the  rest  of  the  money,  and  laughed 
at  me  so  much  for  my  folly  that  I  cried  with  vexation  ;  and  the  reflection 
gave  me  more  chagrin  than  the  whistle  gave  me  pleasure. 

This,  however,  was  afterward  of  use  to  me,  the  impression  continuing  on 
my  mind;  so  that  often  when  I  was  tempted  to  buy  some  unnecessary 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN.  221 

thing,  I  said  to  myself,  Dorft  give  too  much  for  the  whistle;  and  I  saved  my 
money. 

As  I  grow  up,  came  into  the  world,  and  observed  the  actions  of  men,  I 
thought  I  met  with  many,  very  many,  who  gave  too  much  for  ike  whistle. 

When  I  saw  one  too  ambitious  of  court  favor,  sacrificing  his  time  in  at 
tendance  on  levees,  his  repose,  his  liberty,  his  virtue,  and  perhaps  his  friends 
to  attain  it,  I  have  said  to  myself,  This  man  gives  too  much  for  his  whistle. 

When  I  saw  another  fond  of  popularity,  constantly  employing  himself  in 
political  bustles,  neglecting  his  own  affairs,  and  ruining  them  by  that  neg 
lect,  He  pays,  indeed,  said  I,  too  much  for  his  whistle.  .  .  . 

If  I  see  one  fond  of  appearance  or  fine  clothes,  fine  houses,  fine  furniture, 
tine  equipages,  all  above  his  fortune,  for  which  he  contracts  debts  and  ends 
his  career  in  a  prison,  Alas\  say  I,  he  has  paid  dear,  very  dear  for  his  whistle.  .  . 

In  short,  I  conceive  that  a  great  part  of  the  miseries  of  mankind  are  brought 
upon  them  by  the  false  estimates  they  have  made  of  the  value  of  things 
and  by  their  giving  too  much  far  their  whistles. 

Yet  I  ought  to  have  charity  for  these  unhappy  people,  when  I  consider 
that  with  all  this  wisdom  of  which  I  am  boasting,  there  are  certain  things  in 
the  world  so  tempting,  for  example,  the  apples  of  King  John,  which  hap 
pily  are  not  to  be  bought;  for  if  they  were  put  to  sale  by  auction  I  might 
very  easily  be  led  to  ruin  myself  in  the  purchase,  and  find  that  I  had  once 
more  given  too  much  for  the  whistle 


PHILIP  FRENEAU. 

THE  INDIAN  BUKYING-GKOUND. 

IN  spite  of  all  the  learned  have  said, 
I  still  my  old  opinion  keep : 

The  posture  that  we  give  the  dead 
Points  out  the  soul's  eternal  sleep. 

Not  so  the  ancients  of  these  lands : 
The  Indian,  when  from  life  released, 

Again  is  seated  with  his  friends, 
And  shares  again  the  joyous  feast. 

His  imaged  birds  and  painted  bowl 
And  venison,  for  a  journey  dressed, 

Bespeak  the  nature  of  the  soul, 
Activity  that  knows  no  rest. 


222  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

His  bow  for  action  ready  bent, 
And  arrows  with  a  head  of  stone, 

Can  only  mean  that  life  is  spent, 
And  not  the  finer  essence  gone. 

Thou,  stranger  that  slialt  come  this  way. 

No  fraud  upon  the  dead  commit — 
Observe  the  swelling  turf  and  say, 

They  do  not  lie,  but  here  they  sit. 

Here  still  a  lofty  rock  remains, 

On  wliich  the  curious  eye  may  trace 

(Xow  wasted  half  by  wearing  rains) 
The  fancies  of  a  ruder  race. 

Here  still  an  aged  elm  aspires, 

Beneath  whose  far-projecting  shade 

(And  which  the  shepherd  still  admires) 
The  children  of  the  forest  played. 

There  oft  a  restless  Indian  queen 
(Pale  Sheba  with  her  braided  hair), 

And  many  a  barbarous  form  is  seen 
To  chide  the  man  that  lingers  there. 

By  midnight  moons,  o'er  moistening  dews, 
In  vestments  for  the  chase  arrayed, 

The  hunter  still  the  deer  pursues, 
The  hunter  arid  the  deer — a  shade ! 

And  long  shall  timorous  Fancy  see 
The  painted  chief  and  pointed  spear, 

And  Reason's  self  shall  bow  the  knee 
To  shadows  and  delusions  here. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER. 

THE  UNION. 

[From  the  Reply  to  Haync,  January  25, 1830. J 

I  PROFESS,  sir,  in  my  career  hitherto,  to  have  kept  steadily  in  view 
the  prosperity  and  honor  of  the  whole  country,  and  the  preservation  of 
our  Federal  Union.  It  is  to  that  Union  wo  owe  our  safety  at  home  and 
our  consideration  and  dignity  abroad.  It  is  to  that  Union  that  we  are 
chiefly  indebted  for  whatever  makes  us  most  proud  of  our  country.  That 
Union  we  reached  only  by  the  discipline  of  our  virtues  in  the  severe  school 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  223 

of  adversity.  It  had  its  origin  in  the  necessities  of  disordered  finance, 
prostrate  commerce,  and  ruined  credit.  Under  its  benign  influences  these 
great  interests  immediately  awoke  us  from  the  dead  and  sprang  forth  with 
newness  of  life.  Every  year  of  its  duration  has  teemed  with  fresh  proof's 
of  its  utility  and  its  blessings;  and  although  our  territory  has  stretched  out 
wider  and  wider  and  our  population  spread  farther  and  farther,  they  have 
not  outrun  its  protection  or  its  benefits.  It  has  been  to  us  all  a  copious 
fountain  of  national,  social,  and  personal  happiness. 

I  have  not  allowed  myself,  sir,  to  look  beyond  the  Union  to  see  what 
might  lie  hidden  in  the  dark  recess  behind.  I  have  not  coolly  weighed  the 
chances  of  preserving  liberty  when  the  bonds  that  unite  us  together  shall 
be  broken  asunder.  I  have  not  accustomed  myself  to  hang  over  the  preci 
pice  of  disunion  to  see  whether  with  my  short  sight  I  can  fathom  the  depth 
of  the  abyss  below;  nor  could  I  regard  him  as  a  safe  counselor  in  the  affairs 
of  this  government  whose  thoughts  should  be  mainly  bent  on  considering 
not  how  the  Union  may  be  best  preserved,  but  how  tolerable  might  be  the 
condition  of  the  people  when  it  should  be  broken  up  and  destroyed.  While 
the  Union  lasts  we  have  high,  exciting,  gratifying  prospects  spread  out 
before  us,  for  us  and  our  children.  Beyond  that  I  seek  not  to  penetrate 
the  veil.  God  grant  that  in  my  day  at  least  that  curtain  may  not  rise !  God 
grant  that  on  my  vision  never  maybe  opened  what  lies  beyond!  When 
my  eyes  shall  be  turned  to  behold  for  the  last  time  the  sun  in  heaven,  may 
I  not  see  him  shining  on  the  broken  and  dishonored  fragments  of  a  once 
glorious  Union ;  on  States  dissevered,  discordant,  belligerent ;  on  a  land  rent 
with  civil  feuds,  or  drenched,  it  may  be,  in  fraternal  blood !  Let  their  last 
feeble  and  lingering  glance  rather  behold  the  gorgeous  ensign  of  the  Republic, 
now  known  and  honored  throughout  the  earth,  still  full  high  advanced,  its 
arras  and  trophies  streaming  in  their  original  luster,  not  a  stripe  erased  or 
polluted,  not  a  single  star  obscured,  bearing  for  its  motto  no  such  miserable, 
interrogatory  as  "What  is  all  this  worth?"  nor  those  other  words  of 
delusion  and  folly,  "Liberty  first  and  Union  afterward;  "  but  every-where, 
spread  all  over  in  characters  of  living  light,  blazing  on  all  its  ample  folds  as 
they  float  over  the  sea  and  over  the  land,  and  in  every  wind  under  the 
whole  heavens,  that  other  sentiment  dear  to  every  true  American  heart — 
Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable ! 

SOUTH  CAROLINA  AND  MASSACHUSETTS. 

[From  the  same.] 

WHEN  I  shall  be  found,  sir,  in  my  place  here  in  the  Senate,  or  elsewhere, 
to  sneer  at  public  merit  because  it  happens  to  spring  up  beyond  the  little  limits 
of  my  own  State  or  neighborhood ;  when  I  refuse,  for  any  such  cause,  or  for 


224  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

any  cause,  the  homage  due  to  American  talent,  to  elevated  patriotism,  to  sin 
cere  devotion  to  liberty  and  the  country;  or,  if  I  see  an  uncommon  endow 
ment  of  Heaven,  if  I  see  extraordinary  capacity  and  virtue,  in  any  son  of 
the  South ;  and  if,  moved  by  local  prejudices  or  gangrened  by  State  jeal 
ousy,  I  get  up  here  to  abate  the  tithe  of  a  hair  from  his  just  character  and 
just  fame,  may  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth  ! 

Sir,  let  me  recur  to  pleasing  recollections;  let  me  indulge  in  refreshing 
remembrances  of  the  past;  let  me  remind  you  that,  in  early  times,  no  States 
cherished  greater  harmony,  both  of  principle  and  feeling,  than  Massachu 
setts  and  South  Carolina.  "Would  to  God  that  harmony  might  again  re 
turn!  Shoulder  to  shoulder  they  went  through  the  Revolution,  hand  in 
hand  they  stood  round  the  administration  of  Washington,  and  felt  his  own 
great  arm  lean  on  them  for  support.  Unkind  feeling,  if  it  exist,  alienation 
and  distrust  are  the  growth,  unnatural  to  such  soils,  of  false  principles  since 
sown.  They  are  weeds,  the  seedsof  which  that  same  great  arm  never  scattered. 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  enter  upon  no  encomium  of  Massachusetts;  she 
needs  none.  There  she  is.  Behold  her  and  judge  for  yourselves.  There 
is  her  history ;  the  world  knows  it  by  heart.  The  past,  at  least,  is  secure. 
There  is  Boston,  and  Concord,  and  Lexington,  and  Bunkor  Hill ;  and  there 
they  will  remain  forever.  The  bones  of  her  sons,  falling  in  the  great  strug 
gle  for  independence,  now  lie  mingled  with  the  soil  of  every  State  from 
New  England  to  Georgia,  and  there  they  will  lie  forever.  And,  sir,  where 
American  liberty  raised  its  first  voice,  and  where  its  youth  was  nurtured 
and  sustained,  there  it  still  lives,  in  the  strength  of  its  manhood,  and  full  of 
its  original  spirit.  If  discord  and  disunion  shall  wound  it,  if  party  strife 
and  blind  ambition  shall  hawk  at  and  tear  it,  if  folly  and  madness,  if  uneas 
iness  under  salutary  and  necessary  restraint  shall  succeed  in  separating  it 
from  that  Union  by  which  alone  its  existence  is  made  sure,  it  will  stand, 
in  the  end,  by  the  side  of  that  cradle  in  which  its  infancy  was  rocked  ;  it 
will  stretch  forth  its  arm  with  whatever  of  vigor  it  may  still  retain,  over 
the  friends  who  gather  round  it;  and  it  will  fall  at  last,  if  fall  it  must, 
amidst  the  profoundest  monuments  of  its  own  glory,  and  on  the  very  spot 
of  its  origin. 


WASHINGTON    IRVING. 

THE  STORM  SHIP. 
[From  Bracebridge  Hall.] 

IN  the  golden  age  of  the  province  of  the  New  Netherlands,  when  under 
the  sway  of  Wouter  Van  Twiller,  otherwise  called  the  Doubter,  the  people 
of  the  Manhattoes  were  alarmed  one  sultry  afternoon,  just  about  the  time  of 


WASHINGTON  IRVING.  225 

the  summer  solstice,  by  a  tremendous  storm  of  thunder  and  lightning.  The 
rain  fell  in  such  torrents  as  absolutely  to  spatter  up  and  smoke  along  the 
ground.  It  seemed  as  if  the  thunder  rattled  and  rolled  over  the  very  roofs 
of  the  houses ;  the  lightning  was  seen  to  play  about  the  Church  of  St. 
Nicholas,  and  to  strive  three  times  in  vain  to  strike  its  weather-cock.  Gar- 
rett  Van  Home's  new  chimney  was  split  almost  from  top  to  bottom ;  and 
Boffne  Mildeberger  was  struck  speechless  from  his  bald-faced  mare  just  as 
he  was  riding  into  town.  ...  At  length  the  storm  abated ;  the  thunder  sauk 
into  a  growl,  and  the  setting  sun,  breaking  from  under  the  fringed  borders ^ 
of  the  clouds,  made  the  broad  bosom  of  the  bay  to  gleam  like  a  sea  of 
molten  gold. 

The  word  was  given  from  the  fort  that  a  ship  was  standing  up  the  bay.  .  . . 
She  was  a  stout,  round,  Dutch-built  vessel,  with  high  bow  and  poop,  and 
bearing  Dutch  colors.  The  evening  sun  gilded  her  bellying  canvas  as  she 
came  riding  over  the  long  waving  billows.  The  sentinel  who  had  given  no 
tice  of  her  approach  declared  that  he  first  got  sight  of  her  when  she  was  in 
the  center  of  the  bay;  and  that  she  broke  suddenly  on  his  sight,  just  as  if 
she  had  come  out  of  the  bosom  of  the  black  thunder-clouds.  .  .  .  The  ship 
was  now  repeatedly  hailed,  but  made  no  reply,  and,  passing  by  the  fort, 
stood  on  up  the  Hudson.  A  gun  was  brought  to  bear  on  her,  arid,  with 
some  difficulty,  loaded  and  fired  by  Hans  Van  Pelt,  the  garrison  not  being 
expert  in  artillery.  The  shot  seemed  absolutely  to  pass  through  the  ship, 
and  to  skip  along  the  water  on  the  other  side ;  but  no  notice  was  taken  of 
it !  What  was  strange,  she  had  all  her  sails  set,  and  sailed  right  against 
wind  and  tide,  which  were  both  down  the  river.  .  .  .  Thus  she  kept  on, 
away  up  the  river,  lessening  and  lessening  in  the  evening  sunshine,  until  she 
faded  from  sight  like  a  little  white  cloud  melting  away  in  the  summer 
sky.  .  .  . 

Messengers  were  dispatched  to  various  places  on  the  river,  but  they  re 
turned  without  any  tidings — the  ship  had  made  no  port.  Day  after  day, 
week  after  week  elapsed,  but  she  never  returned  down  the  Hudson.  As, 
however,  the  council  seemed  solicitous  for  intelligence  they  had  it  in  abun 
dance.  The  captains  of  the  sloops  seldom  arrived  without  bringing  some 
report  of  having  seen  the  strange  ship  at  different  parts  of  the  river — • 
sometimes  near  the  Palisades,  sometimes  off  Croton  Point,  and  sometimes 
in  the  Highlands ;  but  she  never  was  reported  as  having  been  seen  above 
the  Highlands.  The  crews  of  the  sloops,  it  is  true,  generally  differed  among 
themselves  in  their  accounts  of  these  apparitions  ;  but  that  may  have  arisen 
from  the  uncertain  situations  in  which  they  saw  her.  Sometimes  it  was  by 
the  flashes  of  the  thunder-storm  lighting  up  a  pitchy  night,  and  giving 
glimpses  of  her  careering  across  Tappan  Zee  or  the  wide  waste  of  Haver- 


226  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

straw  Bay.  At  one  moment  she  would  appear  close  upon  them,  as  if  likely 
to  run  them  down,  and  would  throw  them  into  great  bustle  and  alarm ;  but 
the  next  flash  would  show  her  far  off,  always  sailing  against  the  wind. 
Sometimes,  in  quiet  moonlight  nights,  she  would  be  seen  under  some  hi^h 
bluff  of  the  Highlands,  all  in  deep  shadow,  excepting  her  top-sails  glitter 
ing  in  the  moonbeams  ;  by  the  time,  however,  that  the  voyagers  reached 
the  place  no  ship  was  to  be  seen  ;  and  when  they  had  passed  on  for  some 
distance  and  looked  back,  behold  1  there  she  was  again  with  her  top-sails  in 
.  the  moonshine  I  Her  appearance  was  always  just  after  or  just  in  the  midst 
of  unruly  weather ;  and  she  was  known  among  the  skippers  and  voyagers 
of  the  Hudson  by  the  name  of  "  The  Storm  Ship." 

These  reports  perplexed  the  governor  and  his  council  more  than  ever ; 
and  it  would  be  useless  to  repeat  the  conjectures  and  opinions  uttered  on 
the  subject.  Some  quoted  cases  in  point  of  ships  seen  off  the  coast  ot 
New  England  navigated  by  witches  and  goblins.  Old  Hans  Van  Telt,  who 
had  been  more  than  once  to  the  Dutch  Colony  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
insisted  that  this  must  be  the  Flying  Dutchman  which  had  so  long  haunted 
Table  Bay,  but  being  unable  to  make  port  had  now  sought  another  harbor. 
Others  suggested  that  if  it  really  was  a  supernatural  apparition,  as  there 
was  every  natural  reason  to  believe,  it  might  be  Hendrik  Huds  MI  and  his 
crew  of  the  Half-Moon,  who,  it  was  well  known,  had  once  run  aground  in 
the  upper  part  of  the  river  in  seeking  a  north-west  passage  to  China.  This 
opinion  had  very  .little  weight  with  the  governor,  but  it  passed  current  out 
of  doors  ;  for  indeed  it  had  always  been  reported  that  Hendrik  Hudson  and 
his  crew  haunted  the  Kaatskill  Mountains;  and  it  appeared  very  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  his  ship  might  infest  the  river  "where  the  enterprise  was 
baffled,  or  that  it  might  bear  the  shadowy  crew  to  their  periodical  revels  in 
the  mountain.  .  .  . 

.People  who  live  along  the  river  insist  that  they  sometimes  see  her  in 
summer  moonlight,  and  that  in  a  deep  still  midnight  they  have  heard  the 
chant  of  her  crew,  as  if  heaving  the  lead;  but  sights  and  sounds  are  so 
deceptive  along  the  mountainous  shores,  and  about  the  wide  bays  and  long- 
reaches  of  this  great  river,  that  I  confess  I  have  very  strong  doubts  upon 
the  subject.  It  is  certain,  nevertheless,  that  strange  things  have  been  seen 
in  these  Highlands  in  storms,  which  are  considered  as  connected  with  the 
old  story  of  the  ship.  The  captains  of  the  river  craft  talk  of  a  little  bulb 
ous-bottomed  Dutch  goblin,  in  trunk  hose  and  sugar-loafed  hat,  with  a 
speaking-trumpet  in  his  hand,  which,  they  say,  keeps  about  the  Dunderberg. 
They  declare  that  they  have  heard  him,  in  stormy  weather,  in  the  midst  of 
the  turmoil,  giving  orders  in  Low  Dutch  for  the  piping  up  of  a  fresh  gust  of 
wind  or  the  rattling  off  of  another  thunder-clap ;  that  sometimes  he  has  been 


WASHINGTON  IRVING.  227 

seen  surrounded  by  a  crew  of  little  imps  in  broad  breeches  and  short  doub 
lets,  tumbling  head-over-heels  in  the  rack  and  mist,  and  playing  a  thousand 
gambols  in  the  air,  or  buzzing  like  a  svvartn  of  Hies  about  Anthony's  Xose  : 
and  that,  at  such  times,  the  hurry-scurry  of  the  storm  was  always  greatest. 
One  time  a  sloop,  in  passing  by  the  Dunderberg,  was  overtaken  by  a  thun 
der-gust  that  came  scouring  round  the  mountain,  and  seemed  to  burst  just 
over  the  vessel.  Though  tight  and  well  ballasted  she  labored  dreadfully, 
and  the  water  came  over  the  gunwale.  All  the  crew  were  amazed  when  it 
was  discovered  that  there  was  a  little  white  sugar-loaf  hat  on  the  mast 
head,  known  at  once  to  be  the  hat  of  the  Herr  of  the  Dunderberg.  No 
body,  however,  dared  to  climb  to  the  mast-head  and  get  rid  of  this  terrible 
hat.  The  sloop  continued  laboring  and  rocking,  as  if  she  would  have  rolled 
her  mast  overboard,  and  seemed  in  continual  danger  either  of  upsetting  or 
of  running  on  shore.'  In  this  way  she  drove  quite  through  the  Highlands, 
until  she  had  passed  Pollopol's  Island,  where,  it  is  said,  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Dunderberg  potentate  ceases.  No  sooner  had  she  passed  this  bourn 
than  the  little  hat  spun  up  into  the  air  like  a  top,  whirled  up  all  the  clouds 
into  a  vortex,  and  hurried  them  back  to  the  summit  of  the  Dunderberg, 
while  the  sloop  righted  herself  and  sailed  on  as  quietly  as  if  in  a  mill-pond. 
Nothing  saved  her  from  utter  wreck  but  the  fortunate  circumstance  of  hav 
ing  a  horse-shoe  nailed  against  the  mast — a  wise  precaution  against  evil 
spirits  since  adopted  by  all  the  Dutch  captains  that  navigate  this  haunted 
river.  * 


JAMES    FEN1MORE    COOPER. 

THE  R  E  N  D  E  z  v  o  u  s. 

[From  The 


Ix  the  position  in  which  the  ark  had  now  got,  the  castle  was  concealed 
from  view  by  the  projection  of  a  point,  as,  indeed,  was  the  northern  extrem 
ity  of  the  lake  itself.  A  respectable  mountain,  forest-clad,  and  rounded  like 
all  the  rest,  limited  the  view  in  that  direction,  stretching  immediately  across 
the  whole  of  the  fair  scene,1  with  the  exception  of  a  deep  bay  that  passed  its 
western  end,  lengthening  the  basin  for  more  than  a  mile.  The  manner  in 
which  the  water  Mowed  out  of  the  lake,  beneath  the  leafy  arches  of  tho 
trees  that  lined  the  sides  of  the  stream,  has  already  been  mentioned,  and  it 
has  also  been  said  that  the  rock,  which  was  a  favorite  place  of  rendezvous 
throughout  all  that  region,  and  where  Deerslayer  now  expected  to  meet  his 

>0tse«o  Lake. 


228  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

friend,  stood  near  this  outlet  and  no  great  distance  from  the  shore.  It  was 
a  large  isolated  stone  that  rested  on  the  bottom  of  the  lake,  apparently  left 
there  when  the  waters  tore  away  the  earth  from  around  it,  in  forcing  for 
themselves  a  passage  down  the  river,  and  which  had  obtained  its  shape 
from  the  action  of  the  elements  during  the  slow  progress  of  centuries.  The 
height  of  this  rock  could  scarcely  equal  six  feet,  and,  as  has  been  said,  its' shape 
was  not  unlike  that  which  is  usually  given  to  bee-hives  or  to  a  hay-cock. 
The  latter,  indeed,  gives  the  best  idea,  not  only  of  its  form,  but  of  its  dimen 
sions.  It  stood,  and  still  stands,  for  wo  are  writing  of  real  scenes,  within 
fifty  feet  of  the  bank,  and  in  water  that  was  only  two  feet  in  depth,  though 
there  were  seasons  in  which  its  rounded  apex,  if  such  a  term  can  properly 
be  used,  was  covered  by  the  lake.  Many  of  the  trees  stretched  so  far  for 
ward  as  almost  to  blend  the  rock  with  the  shore,  when  seen  from  a  little 
distance ;  and  one  tall  pine  in  particular  overhung  it  in  a  way  to  form  a 
noble  and  appropriate  canopy  to  a  seat  that  had  held  many  a  forest  chief 
tain,  during  the  long  succession  of  ages  in  which  America  and  all  it 
contained  existed  apart  in  mysterious  solitude,  a  world  by  itself,  equally 
without  a  familiar  history  and  without  an  origin  that  the  annals  of  man 
can  catch. 

"When  distant  some  two  or  three  hundred  feet  from  the  shore  Deerslayer 
took  in  his  sail,  and  he  dropped  his  grapnel  as  soon  as  he  found  the  ark 
had  drifted  in  a  line  that  was  directly  to  windward  of  the  rock.  The 
motion  of  the  scow  was  then  checked,  when  it  was  brought  head  to  wind 
by  the  action  of  the  breeze.  As  soon  as  this  was  done  Deerslayer  "  paid 
out  line,"  and  suffered  the  vess(  1  to  "  set  down  "  upon  the  rock  as  fast  as 
the  light  air  would  force  it  to  leeward.  Floating  entirely  on  the  surface, 
this  was  soon  affected,  and  the  young  man  checked  the  drift  when  he  was 
told  that  the  stern  of  the  scow  was  within  fifteen  or  eighteen  feet  of  the  do- 
sired  spot. 

In  executing  this  maneuver,  Deerslayer  had  proceeded  promptly;  for 
while  he  did  not  in  the  least  doubt  that  he  was  both  watched  and  followed 
by  the  foe.  lie  believed  he  had  distracted  their  movements  by  the  apparent 
uncertainty  of  his  own,  and  he  knew  they  could  have  no  means  of  ascer 
taining  that  the  rock  was  his  aim,  miles?,  indeed,  one  of  the  prisoners  had  be 
trayed  him — a  chance  so  improbable  in  itself  as  to  give  him  no  concern.  Not 
withstanding  the  celerity  and  decision  of  his  movements,  he  did  not,  however, 
venture  so  near  the  shore  without  taking  due  precautions  to  effect  a  re 
treat  in  the  event  of  its  becoming  necessary.  He  held  the  line  in  his  hand, 
and  Judith  was  stationed  at  a  loop  on  the  side  of  the  cibin  next  the  shore, 
where  she  could  watch  the  beach  and  the  rocks  and  give  timely  notice  of 
the  approach  of  either  friend  or  foe.  Hetty  was  also  placed  on  watch,  but 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER.  229 

it  was  to  keep  the  trees  overhead  in  view,  lest  some  enemy  might  ascend 
one,  aud,  by  completely  commanding  the  interior  of  the  scow,  render  the 
defenses  of  the  hut  or  cabin  useless. 

The  sun  had  disappeared  from  the  lake  and  valley  when  Deerslayer 
checked  the  ark  in  the  manner  mentioned.  Still  ii  wanted  a  few  minutes 
to  the  true  sunset,  and  he  knew  Indian  punctuality  too  well  to  anticipate  any 
unmanly  haste  in  his  friend.  The  great  question  was,  whether,  surrounded 
by  enemies  as  he  was  known  to  be,  he  had  escaped  their  toils.  The  occur 
rences  of  the  last  twenty-four  hours  must  be  a  secret  to  him,  and,  like  him 
self,  Chingachgcjk  was  yet  young  on  a  war-path.  It  was  true  he  came 
prepared  to  encounter  the  party  that  withheld  his  promised  bride,  but  he 
had  no  means  of  ascertaining  the  extent  of  the  danger  lie  ran  or  the  precise 
positions  occupied  by  either  friends  or  foes.  In  a  word,  the  trained  sagacity 
and  untiring  caution  of  an  Indian  were  all  he  had  to  rely  on  amid  the  crit 
ical  risks  he  unavoidably  ran. 

44  Is  the  rock  empty,  Judith  ? "  inquired  Deerslayer,  as  soon  as  he  had 
checked  the  drift  of  the  ark,  deeming  it  irnprudont  to  venture  unnecessarily 
near.  "  Is  any  thing  to  be  seen  of  the  Delaware  chief?  " 

"  Nothing,  Deerslayer.  Neither  rock,  shore,  tree,  nor  lake  seems  to  have 
ever  held  a  human  form." 

44  Keep  close,  Judith — keep  close,  Hetty — a  rifle  has  a  prying  eye,  a  nim 
ble  foot,  and  a  desperate  fatal  tongue.  Keep  close,  then,  but  keep  up 
active  looks,  and  be  on  the  alart.  'T would  grieve  me  to  the  heart  did  any 
harm  befall  either  of  you." 

"And  you,  Deerslayer!"  exclaimed  Judith,  turning  her  handsome  face 
from  the  loop,  to  bestow  a  gracious  and  grateful  look  on  the  young  man ; 
"do  you  4keep  close '  and  have  a  proper  care  that  the  savages  do  not  catch  a 
glimpse  of  you!  A  bullet  might  be  as  fatal  to  you  as  to  one  of  us,  and 
the  blow  that  you  felt  would  be  felt  by  all." 

"  No  fear  of  me,  Judith — no  fear  of  me,  my  good  gal.  Do  not  look  this-a- 
way,  although  you  look  so  pleasant  and  comely,  but  keep  your  eyes  on  the 
rock  and  the  shore  and  the — " 

Deerslayer  was  interrupted  by  a  slight  exclamation  from  the  girl,  who, 
in  obedience  to  his  hurried  gestures,  as  much  as  in  obedience  to  his  words, 
had  immediately  bent  her  looks  again  in  the  opposite  direction. 

"  What  is't?— what  is't,  Judith  ?  "  he  hastily  demanded.  "  Is  any  thing 
to  be  seen?" 

"There  is  a  man  on  the  rock! — an  Indian  warrior  in  his  paint,  and 
armed  1" 

44  Where  does  he  wear  his  hawk's  feather  ? "  eagerly  added  Deerslayer, 
relaxing  his  hold  of  the  line,  ia  readiness  to  drift  nearer  to  the  place 


230  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

of  rendezvous.  "  Is  it  fast  to  the  warlock,  or  does  he  carry  it  above  the 
left  ear  ?  " 

"  'Tis  as  you  say,  above  the  left  ear;  he  smiles,  too,  and  mutters  the  word 
'Mohican.'" 

"God  be  praised,  'tis  the  Sarpent  at  last!  "  exclaimed  the  young  man, 
suffering  the  line  to  slip  through  his  hands  until,  hearing  a  light  bound  in 
the  other  end  of  the  craft,  he  instantly  checked  the  rope  and  began  to  haul  it 
in  again  under  the  assurance  that  his  object  was  effected. 

At  that  moment  the  door  of  the  cabin  was  opened  hastily,  and  a  warrior 
darting  through  the  little  room  stood  at  Deerslayer's  side,  simply  uttering 
the  exclamation  "  Hugh  !  "  At  the  next  instant  Judith  and  Hetty  shriekeu, 
and  the  air  was  filled  with  the  yell  of  twenty  savages,  who  came  leaping 
through  the  branches  down  the  bank,  some  actually  falling  headlong  into 
the  water  in  their  haste. 

41  Pull,  Deerslayer,"  cried  Judith,  hastily  barring  the  door,  in  order  to  pre 
vent  an  inroad  by  the  passage  through  which  the  Delaware  had  just  entered ; 
''  pull  for  life  and  death — the  lake  is  full  of  savages  wading  after  us  I  " 

The  young  men — for  Chingachgook  immediately  came  to  his  friend's  assist 
ance — needed  no  second  bidding,  but  they  applied  themselves  to  their  task 
in  a  way  that  showed  how  urgent  they  deemed  the  occasion.  The  great 
difficulty  was  in  suddenly  overcoming  the  vis  inertias,  of  so  large  a  mass;  for, 
once  in  motion,  it  was  easy  to  cause  the  scow  to  skim  the  water  with  all 
the  necessary  speed. 

"  Pull,  Deerslayer,  for  heaven's  sake ! "  cried  Judith,  again  at  the  loop. 
"  These  wretches  rush  into  the  water  like  hounds  following  their  prey  I  Ah  I 
The  scow  moves !  and  now  the  water  deepens  to  the  armpits  of  the  fore 
most  ;  still  they  rush  forward  and  will  seize  the  ark  I  " 

A  slight  scream  and  then  a  joyous  laugh  followed  from  the  girl;  the  first 
produced  by  a  desperate  effort  of  their  pursuers,  and  the  last  by  its  failure; 
the  scow,  which  had  now  got  fairly  in  motion,  gliding  ahead  into  deep 
water  with  a  velocity  that  set  the  designs  of  their  enemies  at  naught.  As 
the  two  men  were  prevented  by  the  position  of  the  cabin  from  seeing  what 
passed  astern,  they  were  compelled  to  inquire  of  the  girls  into  the  state  of 
the  chase. 

"What  now,  Judith? — what  next?  Do  the  Mingoes  still  follow,  or  are 
we  quit  of  'em  for  the  present?"  demanded  Deerslayer  when  he  felt  the 
rope  yielding,  as  if  the  scow  was  going  fast  ahead,  and  heard  the  scream 
and  the  laugh  of  the  girl  almost  in  the  same  breath. 

"  They  have  vanished ! — one,  the  last,  is  just  burying  himself  in  the  bushes 
of  the  bank — there  1  he  has  disappeared  in  the  shadows  of  the  trees  I  You 
have  got  your  friend  and  we  are  all  safe  1 " 


WILLIAM  (VLLEN  BRYANT.  231 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 

To  A  WATERFOWL. 

WHITHER,  'midst  falling  dew, 

While  glow  the  heavens  with  the  last  steps  of  day, 
Far  through  their  rosy  depths  dost  thou  pursue 

Thy  solitary  way  ? 

Vainly  the  fowler's  eye 

Might  mark  thy  distant  flight  to  do  thee  wrong, 
As,  darkly  seen  against  tho  crimson  sky, 

Thy  figure  floats  along. 

Seek'st  thou  the  plashy  brink 

Of  weedy  lake  or  marge  of  river  wide, 
X3r  where  the  rocking  billows  rise  and  sink 

OL  the  chafed  ocean  side? 

There  is  a  power  whose  care 

Teaches  thy  way  along  that  pathless  coast — 
The  desert  and  illimitable  air — 

Lone  wandering  but  not  lost. 

All  day  thy  wings  have  fanned, 

At  that  far  height,  the  cold,  thin  atmosphere 
Yet  stoop  not,  weary,  to  the  welcome  land. 

Though  the  dark  night  is  near. 

And  soon  that  toil  shall  end ; 

Soon  shalt  thou  find  a  summer  home  and  rent, 
And  scream  among  thy  fellows;  reeds  shall  bend 

Soon  o'er  thy  sheltered  nest. 

Thou'rt  gone,  the  abyss  of  heaven 

Hath  swallowed  up  thy  form;  yet  on  my  heart 

Deeply  hath  sunk  the  lesson  thou  hast  given, 
And  shall  not  soon  depart. 

He  who,  from  zone  to  zone, 

Guides  through  the  boundless  sky  thy  certair  :!i;.rht, 
In  the  long  way  that  I  must  tread  alone, 

Will  lead  my  steps  aright. 


232  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

THE  DEATH  OF  THE  FLOWERS. 

THE  melancholy  days  are  come, 

The  saddest  of  the  year, 
Of  wailing  winds  and  naked  woods, 

And  meadows  brown  and  sere. 
Heaped  in  the  hollows  of  the  grove, 

The  autumn  leaves  lie  dead  ; 
They  rustle  to  the  eddying  gust, 

And  to  the  rabbit's  tread. 
The  robin  and  the  wren  are  flown, 

And  from  the  shrubs  the  jay, 
And  from  the  wood-top  calls  the  crow 

Through  all  the  gloomy  day. 

Where  are  the  flowers,  the  fair  young  flowers, 

That  lately  sprang  and  stood 
In  brighter  light  and  softer  airs, 

A  beauteous  sisterhood  ? 
Alas !  they  all  are  in  their  graves ; 

The  gentle  race  of  flowers 
Are  lying  in.  their  lowly  beds 

With  the  fair  and  good  of  ours. 
The  rain  is  falling  where  they  lie, 

But  the  cold  November  rain 
Calls  not,  from  out  the  gloomy  earth, 

The  lovely  ones  again. 

The  wind-flower  and  the  violet, 

They  perished  long  ago, 
And  the  brier-rose  and  the  orchis  died 

Amid  the  summer  glow ; 
But  on  the  hill  the  golden-rod, 

And  the  aster  in  the  wood, 
And  the  yellow  sun-flower  by  the  brook 

In  autumn  beauty  stood, 
Till  fell  the  frost  from  the  clear  cold  heaven, 

As  falls  the  plague  on  men, 
And  the  brightness  of  their  smile  was  gone 

From  upland,  glade,  and  glen. 


WILLIAM  CULLEX  BRYANT.  233 

And  now  when  comes  the  calm,  mild  day, 

As  still  such  days  will  come, 
To  call  the  squirrel  and  the  bee 

From  out  their  winter  home  ; 
When  the  sound  of  dropping  nuts  is  heard, 

Though  all  the  trees  are  still, 
And  twinkle  in  the  smoky  light 

The  waters  of  the  rill, 
The  south  wind  searches  for  the  flowers 

Whose  fragrance  late  he  bore, 
And  sighs  to  find  them  in  the  wood 

And  by  the  stream  no  more. 

And  then  I  think  of  one  who  in 

Her  youthful  beauty  died, 
The  fair  meek  blossom  that  grew  up 

And  faded  by  my  side ; 
In  the  cold,  moist  earth  we  laid  her, 

When  the  forest  cast  the  leaf, 
And  we  wept  that  one  so  lovely 

Should  have  a  life  so  brief. 
Yet  not  unmeet  it  was  that  one, 

Like  that  young  friend  of  ours, 
So  gentle  and  so  beautiful, 

Should  perish  witli  the  flowers. 


THE  UNIVERSAL  TOMB. 

LFrom  Thanatopsis.] 

5TET  not  to  thine  eternal  resting-place 
Shalt  thou  retire  alone,  nor  could'st  thou  wish 
Couch  more  magnificent.     Thou  shalt  lie  down 
With  patriarchs  of  the  infant  world — with  kings, 
The  powerful  of  the  earth — the  wise,  the  good, 
Fair  forms,  and  hoary  seers  of  ages  past, 
All  in  one  mighty  sepulcher.     The  hills, 
Rock-ribb'd  and  ancient  as  the  sun, — the  vales 
Stretching  in  pensive  quietness  between  ; 
The  venerable  woods — rivers  that  move 
In  majesty,  and  the  complaining  brooks 
That  make  the  meadows  green ;  and,  poured  round  all, 


234  INIT!AL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Old  Ocean's  gray  and  melancholy  waste, — 
Are  but  the  solemn  decorations  all 
Of  the  great  tomb  of  man.     The  golden  sun, 
The  planets,  all  the  infinite  host  of  heaven, 
Are  shining  on  the  sad  abodes  of  death, 
Through  the  still  lapse  of  ages.     All  that  tread 
The  globe  are  but  a  handful  to  the  tribes 
That  slumber  in  its  bosorn.     Take  the  wings 
Of  morning,  traverse  Barca's  desert  sands, 
Or  lose  thyself  in  the  continuous  woods 
Where  rolls  the  Oregon,  and  hears  no  sound 
Save  his  own  dashings — yet  the  dead  are  there: 
Arid  millions  in  those  solitudes,  since  first 
The  flight  of  years  began,  have  laid  them  down 
In  their  last  sleep — the  dead  reign  there  alone. 

So  live,  that  when  thy  summons  comes  to  join 
The  innumerable  caravan,  which  moves 
To  that  mysterious  realm,  where  each  shall  take 
His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  death, 
Thou  go  not,  like  the  quarry-slave  at  night, 
Scourged  to-liis  dungeon,  but,  sustained  and  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy  grave, 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams. 


RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON. 

NATURE'S  MINISTRY  OF  BEAUTY. 

[From  Nature.} 

To  speak  truly,  few  adult  persons  can  see  nature.  Most  persons  do  not 
see  the  sun.  At  least  they  have  a  very  superficial  seeing.  The  sun  illumi 
nates  only  the  eye  of  the  man,  but  shines  into  the  eye  and  the  heart  of  the 
child.  The  lover  of  nature  is  he  whose  inward  and  outward  senses  are  still 
truly  adjusted  to  each  other;  who  has  retained  the  spirit  of  infancy  even 
into  the  era  of  manhood.  Mis  intercourse  with  heaven  and  earth  becomes 
part  of  his  daily  food.  In  the  presence  of  nature  a  wild  delight  runs  through 
the  man,  in  spite  of  real  sorrows.  Nature  says,  He  is  my  creature,  and 
mauger  all  his  impertinent  griefs,  he  shall  be  glad  with  me.  Not  the  suu 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON".  235 

or  the  summer  alone,  but  every  hour  and  season  yields  its  tribute  of  delight; 
lor  every  hour  and  change  corresponds  to  and  authorizes  a  different  state 
of  the  mind,  from  breathless  noon  to  grimmest  midnight.  Nature  is  a 
setting  that  fits  equally  well  a  comic  or  a  mourning  piece.  In  good  health, 
the  air  is  a  cordial  of  incredible  virtue.  Crossing  a  bare  common,  in  snow 
puddles,  at  twilight,  under  a  clouded  sky,  without  having  m  my  thoughts 
any  occurrence  of  special  good  fortune,  I  have  enjoyed  a  perfect  exhilara 
tion.  I  am  glad  to  the  brink  of  fear.  In  the  woods,  too,  a  man  casts  off  his 
years,  as  the  snake  his  slough,  and  at  what  period  soever  of  life  is  always 
a  child.  In  the  woods  is  perpetual  youth.  Within  these  plantations  of 
God  a  decorum  and  sanctity  reigns,  a  perennial  festival  is  dressed,  and  the 
guest  sees  not  how  he  should  tire  of  them  in  a  thousand  years.  In  the 
woods  we  return  to  reason  and  faith.  There  I  feel  that  nothing  can  befall 
me  in  life — no  disgrace,  no  calamity  (leaving  me  my  eyes),  which  nature 
cnnnot  repair.  Standing  on  the  bare  ground — my  head  bathed  by  the 
blithe  air,  and  uplifted  into  infinite  space — all  mean  egotism  vanishes,  I 
become  a  transparent  eyeball;  I  am  nothing;  I  see  all;  the  currents  of  the 
Universal  Being  circulate  through  me;  I  am  part  or  particle  of  God.  The 
name  of  the  nearest  friend  sounds  there  foreign  and  accidental:  to  be 
brothers,  to  be  acquaintances — master  or  servant,  is  then  a  trifle  and  a  dis 
turbance.  I  am  the  lover  of  uncontained  and  immortal  beauty.  In  the 
wilderness  I  find  something  more  dear  and  connate  than  in  streets  or  vil 
lages.  In  the  tranquil  landscape,  and  especially  in  the  distant  line  of  the 
horizon,  man  beholds  somewhat  as  beautiful  as  his  own  nature. 

The  greatest  delight  which  the  fields  and  woods  minister  is  the  sugges 
tion  of  an  occult  relation  between  man  and  the  vegetable.  I  am  not  alone 
and  unacknowledged.  They  nod  to  me,  and  I  to  them.  The  waving  of  the 
boughs  in  the  storm  is  new  to  me  and  old.  It  takes  me  by  surprise,  and 
yet  is  not  unknown.  .  .  . 

I  see  the  spectacle  of  morning  from  the  hill-top  over  against  my  house, 
from  daybreak  to  sunrise,  with  emotions  which  an  angel  might  share.  The 
long  slender  bars  of  cloud  float  like  fishes  in  the  sea  of  crimson  light.  From 
the  earth,  as  a  shore,  I  look  out  into  that  silent  sea.  I  seem  to  partake  its 
rapid  transformations:  the  active  enchantment  reaches  my  dust,  and  I  di 
late  and  conspire  with  the  morning  wind.  How  does  Nature  deifj"  us  with 
a  few  and  cheap  elements  I  Give  me  health  and  a  day,  and  I  will  make  the 
pomp  of  emperors  ridiculous.  The  dawn  is  my  Assyria ;  the  sunset  and 
rnoonrise  my  Paphos,  and  unimaginable  realms  of  faerie  ;  broad  noon  shall 
be  my  England  of  the  senses  and  the  understanding;  the  night  shall  be 
my  Germany  of  mystic  philosophy  and  dreams. 

Not   less  excellent,  except  for  our  less  susceptibility  in  the  afternoon, 


236  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

was  the  charm,  last  evening,  of  a  January  sunset.  The  western  clouds  di 
vided  and  subdivided  themselves  into  pink  flakes  modulated  with  tints  of 
unspeakable  softness ;  and  the  air  had  so  much  life  and  sweetness  that 
it  was  a  pain  to  come  within  doors.  What  was  it  that  Nature  would 
say  ?  Was  there  no  meaning  in  the  live  repose  of  the  valley  behind  the 
mill,  and  which  Homer  or  Shakespeare  could  not  re-form  for  me  in 
words?  The  leafless  trees  become  spires  of  flame  in  the  sunset,  with 
the  blue  east  for  their  background,  and  the  stars  of  the  dead  calices  of 
flowers,  and  every  withered  stem  and  stubble  ruined  with  frost,  con 
tribute  something  to  the  mute  music. 

IDEALISM. 

[From  the  same.] 

To  the  senses  and  the  unrenewed  understanding  belongs  a  sort  of  instinct 
ive  belief  in  the  absolute  existence  of  nature.  In  their  view  man  and 
nature  are  indissolubly  joined.  Things  are  ultimates,  and  they  never  look 
beyond  their  sphere.  The  presence  of  Keason  mars  this  faith.  .  .  .  Nature 
is  made  to  conspire  with  spirit  to  emancipate  us.  Certain  mechanical 
changes,  a  small  alteration  in  our  local  position,  apprises  us  of  a  dualism. 
We  are  strangely  affected  by  seeing  the  shore  from  a  moving  ship,  from  a 
balloon,  or  through  the  tints  of  an  unusual  sky.  The  least  change  in  our 
point  of  view  gives  the  whole  world  a  pictorial  air.  A  man  who  seldom 
rides  needs  only  to  get  into  a  coach  and  traverse  his  own  town,  to  turn  the 
street  into  a  puppet-show.  The  men,  the  women — talking,  running,  barter 
ing,  fighting — the  earnest  mechanic,  the  lounger,  the  beggar,  the  boys,  the 
dogs  are  unrealized  at  once,  or  at  least  wholly  detached  from  all  relation  to 
the  observer,  and  seen  as  apparent,  not  substantial,  beings.  What  new 
thoughts  are  suggested  by  seeing  a  face  of  country  quite  familiar,  in  the 
rapid  movement  of  the  railway  car  1  Nay,  the  most  wonted  objects  (make 
a  very  slight  change  in  the  point  of  vision)  please  us  most.  In  a 
camera  obscura  the  butcher's  cart  and  the  figure  of  one  of  our  own  family 
amuse  us.  So  a  portrait  of  a  well-known  face  gratifies  us.  Turn  the 
eyes  upside  down,  by  looking  at  the  landscape  through  your  legs,  and  how 
agreeable  is  the  picture,  though  you  have  seen  it  any  time  these  twenty 
years  1 

In  these  cases,  by  mechanical  means,  is  suggested  the  difference  between 
the  observer  and  the  spectacle,  between  the  man  and  nature.  Hence  arises 
a  pleasure  mixed  with  awe ;  I  may  say,  a  low  degree  of  the  sublime  is  felt 
from  the  fact,  probably,  that  man  is  hereby  apprised,  that  whilst  the  world 
is  a  spectacle,  something  in  himself  is  stable. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  237 


THE 

IN  May,  when  sea-winds  pierced  our  solitudes, 

I  found  the  fresh  Rhodora  in  the  woods, 

Spreading  its  leafless  blooms  in  a  damp  nook, 

To  please  the  desert  and  the  sluggish  brook. 

The  purple  petals,  fallen  in  the  pool, 

Made  the  black  water  with  their  beauty  gay ; 

Here  might  the  red  bird  come  his  plumes  to  cool, 

And  court  the  flower  that  cheapens  his  array. 

Rhodora !  if  the  sages  ask  thee  why 

This  charm  is  wasted  on  the  earth  and  sky, 

Tell  them,  dear,  that  if  eyes  were  made  for  seeing, 

Then  Beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being: 

Why  thou  wert  there,  0  rival  of  the  rose, 

I  never  thought  to  ask,  I  never  knew: 

But,  in  my  simple  ignorance,  suppose 

The  self-same  power  that  brought  me  there  brought  you. 

HYMN. 

oimg  at  the  completion  of  the  Concord  Monument,  April  19,  1836.] 

BY  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 

Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 
Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood, 

And  tired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world. 

The  foe  long  since  in  silence  slept; 

Alike  the  conqueror  silent  sleeps ; 
And  time  the  ruined  bridge  has  swept 

Down  the  dark  stream  which  seaward  creeps. 

On  this  green  bank,  by  this  soft  stream, 

"We  set  to-day  a  votive  stone; 
That  memory  may  their  deed  redeem, 

When,  like  our  sires,  our  sons  are  gone. 

Spirit,  that  made  those  heroes  dare 

To  die,  and.  leave  their  children  free, 
Bid  time  and  nature  gently  spare 

The  shaft  we  raise  to  them  and  thee. 

1  On  beinc  asked.  Whence  is  the  flower  ? 


238          INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHOBNE. 
THE  HAUNTED  MIND. 

WHAT  a  singular  moment  is  the  first  one,  when  you  have  hardly  begun  to 
recollect  yourself,  after  starting  from  midnight  slumber!  By  unclosing  your 
eyes  so  suddenly  you  seem  to  have  surprised  the  personages  of  your  dream 
in  full  convocation  round  your  bed  and  catch  one  broad  glance  at  them  be 
fore  they  can  flit  into  obscurity.  Or,  to  vary  the  metaphor,  you  find  your 
self,  for  a  single  instant,  wide  awake  in  that  realm  of  illusions  whither  sleep 
has  been  the  passport,  and  behold  its  ghostly  inhabitants  arid  wondrous 
scenery  with  a  perception  of  their  strangeness  such  as  you  never  atta'n 
while  the  dream  is  undisturbed.  The  distant  sound  of  a  church  clock  is 
borne  faintly  on  the  wind.  You  question  with  yourself,  half  seriously, 
whether  it  has  stolen  to  your  waking  ear  from  some  gray  tower  that  stood 
within  the  precincts  of  your  dream.  While  yet  in  suspense,  another  clock 
Mings  its  heavy  clang  over  the  slumbering  town  with  so  full  and  distinct  a 
sound,  and  such  a  long  murmur  in  the  neighboring  air,  that  you  are  certain 
ii  must  proceed  from  the  steeple  at  the  nearest  corner.  You  count  the 
strokes — one — two,  and  there  they  cease,  with  a  booming  sound,  like  tire 
gathering  of  a  third  stroke  within  the  bell. 

If  you  could  choose  an  hour  of  wakefulness  out  of  the  whole  night  it 
would  be  this.  Since  your  sober  bed-time,  at  eleven,  you  have  had  rest 
enough  to  take  off  the  pressure  of  yesterday's  fatigue;  while  before  you 
t;ll  the  sun  comes  from  "  far  Cathay  "  to  brighten  your  window  there  is 
almost  the  space  of  a  summer  night;  one  hour  to  be  spent  in  thought,  with 
the  mind's  eye  half  shut,  and  two  in  pleasant  dreams,  and  two  in  that 
strangest  of  enjoyments,  the  forgetfulness  alike  of  joy  and  woe.  The 
moment  of  rising  belongs  to  another  period  of  time,  and  appears  so  distant 
that  the  plunge  out  of  a  warm  bed  into  the  frosty  air  cannot  yet  be  anticipated 
witli  dismay.  Yesterday  has  already  vanished  among  the  shadows  of  the 
I  ast ;  to-morrow  has  not  yet  emerged  from  the  future.  You  have  found  an 
intermediate  space,  where  the  business  of  life  does  not  intrude,  where  the 
passing  moment  lingers  and  becomes  truly  the  present;  a  spot  where 
Father  Time,  when  he  thinks  nobody  is  watching  him,  sits  down  by  the 
way- side  to  take  breath.  0  that  he  would  fall  asleep  and  let  mortals  live  on 
without  growing  older! 

Hitherto  you  have  lain  perfectly  still,  because  the  slightest  motion  would 
dissipate  the  fragments  of  your  slumber.  Now,  being  irrevocably  awake, 
you  peep  through  the  half-drawn  window-curtain  and  observe  that  t.l.e 
glass  is  ornamented  with  fanciful  devices  in  frost-work,  and  that  each  pane 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  239 

presents  something  like  a  frozen  dream.  There  will  be  time  enough  to 
trace  out  the  analogy  while  waiting  the  summons  to  breakfast.  Seen 
through  the  clear  portion  of  the  glass,  where  the  silvery  mountain  peaks 
of  the  frost  scenery  do  not  ascend,  the  most  conspicuous  object  is  the 
steeple,  the  white  spire  of  which  directs  you  to  the  wintry  luster  of  the 
firmament.  You  may  almost  distinguish  the  figures  on  the  clock  that  has 
just  tolled  the  hour.  Such  a  frosty  sky,  and  the  snow-covered  roofs,  and 
the  long  vista  of  the  frozen  street,  all  white,  and  the  distant  water  hardened 
into  rock,  might  make  you  shiver,  even  under  four  blankets  and  a  woolen 
comforter.  Yet  look  at  that  one  glorious  star !  I  is  beams  are  distinguish 
able  from  all  the  rest,  and  actually  cast  the  shadow  of  the  casement  on  the 
bed  with  a  radiance  of  deeper  hue  than  moonlight,  though  not  so  accurate 
an  outline. 

You  sink  down  and  muffle  your  head  in  the  clothes,  shivering  all  the 
while,  but  less  from  bodily  chill  than  the  bare  idea  of  a  polar  atmosphere. 
It  is  too  cold  even  for  the  thoughts  to  venture  abroad.  You  speculate  on 
the  luxury  of  wearing  out  a  whole  existence  in  bed,  like  an  oyster  in  its 
shell,  content  with  the  sluggish  ecstasy  of  inaction,  and  drowsily  conscious 
of  nothing  but  delicious  warmth,  such  as  you  now  feel  again.  Ah!  that 
idea  has  brought  a  hideous  one  in  its  train.  You  think  how  the  dead  are 
lying  in  their  cold  shrouds  and  narrow  coffins  through  the  drear  winter  of 
the  grave,  and  cannot  persuade  your  fancy  that  they  neither  shrink  nor 
shiver  when  the  snow  is  drifting  over  their  little  hillocks  and  the  bitter 
blast  howls  against  the  door  of  the  tomb.  That  gloomy  thought  will 
collect  a  gloomy  multitude  and  throw  its  complexion  over  your  wake 
ful  hour. 

In  the  depths  of  every  heart  there  is  a  tomb  and  a  dungeon,  though  the 
lights,  the  music,  and  revelry  above  may  cause  us  to  forget  their  existence, 
and  the  buried  ones  or  prisoners  whom  they  hide.  But  sometimes,  and 
oftenest  at  midnight,  these  dark  receptacles  are  flung  wide  open.  In  an 
hour  like  this,  when  the  mind  lias  a  passive  sensibility,  but  no  active 
strength  ;  when  the  imagination  is  a  mirror,  imparting  vividness  to  all  ideas 
without  the  power  of  selecting  or  controlling  them,  then  pray  that  your 
griefs  may  slumber  and  the  brotherhood  of  remorse  not  break  their  chain. 
It  is  too  late!  A  funeral  train  comes  gliding  by  your  bed,  in  which  Passion 
and  Feeling  assume  bodily  shape  and  things  of  the  mind  become  dim 
specters  to  the  eye.  There  is  your  earliest  Sorrow,  a  pale  young  mourner, 
wearing  a  sister's  likeness  to  first  love,  sadly  beautiful,  with  a  hallowed 
sweetness  in  her  melancholy  features  and  grace  in  tlie  flow  of  her  sable  robe. 
Next  appears  a  shade  of  ruined  loveliness,  with  dust  among  her  golden  hair 
and  her  bright  garments  all  faded  and  defaced,  stealing  from  your  glance 


240  INITIAL  STUDIES  ix  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

with  drooping  bead,  as  fearful  of  reproach;  she  was  your  fondest  Hope,  but 
a  delusive  one ;  so  call  her  Disappointment  now.  A  sterner  form  succeeds, 
with  a  brow  of  wrinkles,  a  look  and  gesture  of  iron  authority;  there  is  no 
name  for  him  unless  it  be  Fatality,  an  emblem  of  the  evil  influence  that 
rules  your  fortunes ;  a  demon  to  whom  you  subjected  yourself  by  some  error 
at  the  outset  of  life,  arid  were  bound  his  slave  forever,  by  once  obeying  him. 
See!  those  fiendish  lineaments  graven  on  the  darkness,  the  writhed  lip  of 
scorn,  the  mockery  of  that 'living  e}re,  the  pointed  finger,  touching  the  sore 
place  in  your  heart!  Do  you  remember  any  act  of  enormous  folly,  at  which 
you  would  blush,  even  in  the  remotest  cavern  of  the  earth?  Then  recognize 
your  Shame. 

Pass,  wretched  band  1  Well  for  the  wakeful  one  if,  riotously  miserable, 
a  fiercer  tribe  do  not  surround  him,  the  devils  of  a  guilty  heart,  that  holds 
its  hell  within  itself.  What  if  Remorse  should  assume  the  features  of  an 
injured  friend?  What  if  the  fiend  should  come  in  woman's  garments,  with 
a  pale  beauty  amid  sin  and  desolation,  and  lie  down  by  your  side  ?  What 
if  he  should  stand  at  your  bed's  foot,  in  the  likeness  of  a  corpse,  with  P 
bloody  stain  upon  the  shroud?  Sufficient  without  such  guilt  is  this  night 
mare  of  the  soul;  this  heavy,  heavy  sinking  of  the  spirits;  this  wintry 
gloom  about  the  heart ;  this  indistinct  horror  of  the  mind,  blending  itself 
with  the  darkness  of  the  chamber.  .  .  .  Now  comes  the  peal  of  the  distant 
clock,  with  fainter  and  fainter  strokes  as  you  plunge  farther  into  the  wil 
derness  of  sleep.  It  is  the  knell  of  a  temporary  death.  Your  spirit  has  de 
parted,  and  strays  like  a  free  citizen,  among  the  people  of  a  shadowy  world, 
beholding  strange  sights,  yet  without  wonder  or  dismay.  So  calm,  perhaps, 
will  be  the  final  change;  so  undisturbed,  as  if  among  familiar  things,  the 
entrance  of  the  soul  to  its  eternal  home ! 


HENRY   WADSWORTH   LONGFELLOW. 

THE  BELEAGUERED  CITY. 

I  HAVE  read,  in  some  old  marvelous  tale, 
Some  legend  strange  and  vague, 

That  a  midnight  host  of  specters  pale 
Beleaguered  the  walls  of  Prague. 

Beside  the  Moldau's  rushing  stream, 

Witii  the  wan  moon  overhead, 
There  stood,  as  in  an  awful  dream, 

The  army  of  the  dead. 


HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW.  241 

White  as  a  sea-fog,  landward  bound, 

The  spectral  camp  was  seen, 
And,  with  a  sorrowful  deep  sound, 

The  river  flowed  between. 


No  other  voice  nor  sound  was  there, 
No  drum,  nor  sentry's  pace  ; 

The  mist-like  banners  clasped  the  air, 
As  clouds  with  clouds  embrace. 

But  when  the  old  cathedral  bell 
Proclaimed  the  morning  prayer, 

The  white  pavilions  rose  and  fell 
On  the  alarmed  air. 

Down  the  broad  valley  fast  and  far 

The  troubled  army  fled ; 
Up  rose  the  glorious  morning  star, 

The  ghastly  host  was  dead. 

I  have  read  in  the  marvelous  heart  of  man, 
That  strange  and  mystic  scroll, 

That  an  army  of  phantoms  vast  and  wan 
Beleaguer  the  human  soul. 

Encamped  beside  Life's  rushing  stream, 

In  Fancy's  misty  light, 
Gigantic  shapes  and  shadows  gleam 

Portentous  through  the  night. 

Upon  its  midnight  battle-ground 

The  spectral  camp  is  seen, 
And,  with  a  sorrowful  deep  sound, 

Flows  the  River  of  Life  between. 

No  other  voice  nor  sound  is  there, 

In  the  army  of  the  grave ; 
No  other  challenge  breaks  the  air, 

But  the  rushing  of  life's  wave. 
10 


242  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

And  when  the  solemn  and  deep  church-bell 

Entreats  the  soul  to  pray, 
The  midnight  phantoms  feel  the  spell, 

The  shadows  sweep  away. 

Down  the  broad  Yale  of  Tears  afar 

The  spectral  camp  is  fled  ; 
Faith  shineth  as  a  morning  star, 

Our  ghastly  fears  are  dead. 

THE  OCCULTATION  or  ORION. 

I  SAW,  as  in  a  dream  sublime, 
The  balance  in  the  hand  of  Time. 
O'er  East  and  West  its  beam  impended ; 
And  day,  with  all  its  hours  of  light, 
"Was  slowly  sinking  out  of  sight, 
While,  opposite,  the  scale  of  night 
Silently  with  the  stars  ascended. 

Like  the  astrologers  of  eld, 
In  that  bright  vision  I  beheld 
Greater  and  deeper  mysteries. 
I  saw,  with  its  celestial  keys, 
Its  chords  of  air,  its  frets  of  fire, 
The  Samian's  great  ^Eolian  lyre, 
Rising  through  all  its  sevenfold  bars, 
From  earth  unto  the  fixed  stars. 
And  through  the  dewy  atmosphere, 
.Not  only  could  I  see,  but  hear, 
Its  wondrous  and  harmonious  strings, 
In  sweet  vibration,  sphere  by  sphere, 
From  Dian's  circle  light  and  near, 
Onward  to  vaster  and  wider  rings, 
Where,  chanting  through  his  beard  of  snows, 
Majestic,  mournful  Saturn  goes, 
And  down  the  sunless  realms  of  space 
Reverberates  the  thunder  of  his  bass. 

Beneath  the  sky's  triumphal  arch 
This  music  sounded  like  a  march, 
And  with  its  chorus  seemed  to  be 
Preluding  some  great  tragedy. 


HENRY  WADSWOJRTH  LONGFELLOW.  243 

Sirius  was  rising  in  the  east; 
And,  slow  ascending  one  by  one, 
The  kindling  constellations  shone. 
Begirt  with  many  a  blazing  star, 
Stood  the  great  giant,  Algebar, 
Orion,  hunter  of  the  beast ! 
His  sword  hung  gleaming  by  his  side, 
And,  on  his  arm,  the  lion's  hide 
Scattered  across  the  midnight  air 
The  golden  radiance  of  its  hair. 

The  moon  was  pallid,  but  not  faint; 
And  beautiful  as  some  fair  saint, 
Serenely  moving  on  her  way 
In  hours  of  trial  and  dismay. 
As  if  she  heard  the  voice  of  God, 
Unharmed  with  naked  feet  she  trod 
Upon  the  hot  and  burning  stars, 
As  on  the  glowing  coals  and  bars 
That  were  to  prove  her  strength,  and  try 
Her  holiness  and  her  purity. 

Thus  moving  on,  with  silent  pace, 

And  triumph  in  her  sweet,  pale  face, 

She  reached  the  station  of  Orion. 

Aghast  he  stood  in  strange  alarm  ! 

And  suddenly  from  his  outstretched  arm 

Down  fell  the  red  skin  of  the  liun 

Into  the  river  at  his  feet. 

His  mighty  club  no  longer  beat 

The  forehead  of  the  bull ;  but  ho 

Reeled  as  of  yore  beside  the  sea, 

"When,  blinded  by  (Enopion, 

He  sought  the  blacksmith  at  his  forge, 

And,  climbing  up  the  mountain  gorge, 

Fixed  his  blank  eyes  upon  the  sun, 

Then  through  the  silence  overhead, 

An  angel  with  a  trumpet  said, 

"  Forever  more,  forever  more, 

The  reign  of  violence  is  o'er." 

And,  like  an  instrument  that  flings 

Its  music  on  another's  strings, 


244  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

The  trumpet  of  the  angel  cast 

Upon  the  heavenly  lyre  its  blast, 

And  on  from  sphere  to  sphere  the  words 

Re-echoed  down  the  burning  chords, — 

"  For  evermore,  for  evermore, 

The  reign  of  violence  is  o'er!  " 

DANTE. 

TUSCAN,  that  wandercst  through  the  realms  of  gloom, 
With  thoughtful  pace,  and  sad,  majestic  eyes, 
Stern  thoughts  and  awful  from  thy  thoughts  arise, 
Like  Farinata  from  his  fiery  tomb. 
Thy  sacred  song  is  like  the  trump  of  doom ; 
Yet  in  thy  heart  what  human  sympathies. 
What  soft  compassion  glows,  as  in  the  skies 
The  tender  stars  their  clouded  lamps  relume  I 
Methinks  I  see  thee  stand,  with  pallid  cheeks, 

By  Fra  Hilario  in  his  diocese, 
As  up  the  convent  wall,  in  golden  streaks, 

The  ascending  sunbeams  mark  the  day's  decrease. 
And,  as  he  asks  what  there  the  stranger  seeks, 
Thy  voice  along  the  cloister  whispers,  "  Peace  1  " 


JOHN   GKEENLEAF  WHITTIEB. 

RANDOLPH  OF  ROANOKE. 

0  MOTHER  EARTH  !  upon  thy  lap 

Thy  weary  ones  receiving, 
And  o'er  them,  silent  as  a  dream, 

Thy  grassy  mantle  weaving, 
Fold  softly  in  thy  long  embrace 

That  heart  so  worn  and  broken, 
And  cool  its  pulse  of  fire  beneath 

Thy  shadows  old  and  oaken. 

Shut  out  from  him  the  bitter  word 
And  serpent  hiss  of  scorning ; 

Nor  let  the  storms  of  yesterday 
Disturb  his  quiet  morning. 


JOHN  GKEENLEAF  WIIITTIER.  245 

Breathe  over  him  forgetfulness 

Of  all  save  deeds  of  kindness, 
And,  save  to  smiles  of  grateful  eyes, 

Press  down  his  lids  in  blindness. 

There,  where  with  living  ear  and  eye, 

He  heard  Potomac's  Mowing, 
And,  through  his  tall  ancestral  trees 

Saw  autumn's  sunset  glowing, 
He  sleeps — still  looking  to  the  West, 

Beneath  the  dark  wood  shadow, 
As  if  he  still  would  see  the  sun 

Sink  down  on  wave  and  meadow. 

Bard,  Sage,  and  Tribune — in  himself 

All  moods  of  mind  contrasting — 
The  tenderest  wail  of  human  woe, 

The  scorn  like  lightning  blasting; 
The  pathos  which  from,  rival  eyes 

Unwilling  tears  could  summon, 
The  stinging  taunt,  the  fiery  burst 

Of  hatred  scarcely  human  1 

Mirth,  sparkling  like  a  diamond  shower, 

From  lips  of  life-long  sadness  ; 
Clear  picturings  of  majestic  thought 

Upon  a  ground  of  madness ; 
And  over  all  Romance  and  Song 

A  classic  beauty  throwing, 
And  laureled  Clio  at  his  side 

Her  storied  pages  showing. 

All  parties  feared  him :  each  in  turn 

Beheld  its  schemes  disjointed, 
As  right  or  left  his  fatal  glance 

And  spectral  finger  pointed. 
Sworn  foe  of  cant,  he  smote  it  down 

AVith  trenchant  wit  unsparing, 
And,  mocking,  rent  with  ruthless  hand 

The  robe  Pretense  was  wearing. 


246  INITIAL  STUDIES, IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Too  honest  or  too  proud  to  feign 

A  love  lie  never  cherished, 
Beyond  Virginia's  border  line 

His  patriotism  perished. 
"While  others  hailed  in  distant  skies 

Our  eagle's  duskjr  pinion, 
He  only  saw  the  mountain  bird 

Stoop  o'er  his  Old  Dominion. 

Still  through  each  change  of  fortune  strange, 

Racked  nerve,  and  brain  all  burning, 
His  loving  faith  in  mother-land 

Knew  never  shade  of  turning ; 
By  Britain's  lakes,  by  Neva's  wave, 

Whatever  sky  was  o'er  him, 
He  heard  her  rivers'  rushing  sound, 

Her  blue  peaks  rose  before  him. 

He  held  his  slaves,  yet  made  withal 

No  false  and  vain  pretenses, 
Nor  paid  a  lying  priest  to  seek 

For  scriptural  defenses. 
His  harshest  words  of  proud  rebuke, 

His  bitterest  taunt  and  scorning, 
Fell  fire-like  on  the  Northern  brow 

That  bent  to  him  in  fawning. 

He  held  his  slaves,  yet  kept  the  while 

His  reverence  for  the  Human  ; 
In  the  dark  vassals  of  his  will 

He  saw  but  man  and  woman. 
No  hunter  of  God's  outraged  poor 

His  Roanoke  valley  entered ; 
No  trader  in  the  souls  of  men 

Across  his  threshold  ventured. 


And  when  the  old  and  wearied  man 
Lay  down  for  his  last  sleeping, 

And  at  his  side,  a  slave  no  more, 
His  brother-man  stood  weeping, 


JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER.  247 

His  latest  thought,  his  latest  breath, 

To  freedom's  duty  giving, 
With  failing  tongue  and  trembling  hand 

The  dying  blest  the  living. 

0  I  never  bore  his  ancient  State 

A  truer  son  or  braver ; 
None  trampling  with  a  calmer  scorn 

On  foreign  hate  or  favor. 
He  knew  her  faults,  yet  never  stooped 

His  proud  and  manly  feeling 
To  poor  excuses  of  the  wrong 

Or  meanness  of  concealing. 

But  none  beheld  with  clearer  eye, 

The  plague-spot  o'er  her  spreading, 
None  heard  more  sure  the  steps  of  Doom 

Along  her  future  treading. 
For  her  as  for  himself  he  spake, 

When,  his  gaunt  frame  up-bracing, 
He  traced  with  dying  hand  "  REMORSE  I  " 

And  perished  in  the  tracing. 

As  from  the  grave  where  Henry  sleeps,  • 

From  Vernon's  weeping  willow, 
And  from  the  grassy  pall  which  hides 

The  Sage  of  Monticello, 
So  from  the  leaf-strewn  burial-stone 

Of  Randolph's  lowly  dwelling, 
Virginia  I  o'er  thy  land  of  slaves 

A  warning  voice  is  swelling. 

And  hark !  from  thy  deserted  fields 

Are  sadder  warnings  spoken, 
From  quenched  hearths,  where  thy  exiled  sons 

Their  household  gods  have  broken. 
The  curse  is  on  thee— wolves  for  men, 

And  briers  for  corn-sheaves  giving ! 
0  1  more  than  all  thy  dead  renown 

Were  now  one  hero  living. 


248  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

OLIVER  "WENDELL  HOLMES. 
OLD  IRONSIDES. 

AY,  tear  her  tattered  ensign  down! 

Long  has  it  waved  on  high, 
And  many  an  eye  has  danced  to  see 

That  banner  in  the  sky; 
Beneath  it  rung  the  battle  shout, 

And  burst  the  cannon's  roar; 
The  meteor  of  the  ocean  air 

Shall  sweep  the  clouds  no  more. 

Her  deck,  once  red  with  heroes'  blood, 

Where  knelt  the  vanquished  foe, 
When  winds  were  hurrying  o'er  the  flood, 

And  waves  were  white  below, 
No  more  shall  feel  the  victor's  tread, 

Or  know  the  conquered  knee; — 
The  harpies  of  the  shore  shall  pluck 

The  eagle  of  the  sea, 

0,  better  that  her  shattered  hulk 

Should  sink  beneath  the  wave : 
Her  thunders  shook  the  mighty  deep, 

And  there  should  be  her  grave  ; 
Nail  to  the  mast  her  holy  flag, 

Set  every  threadbare  sail, 
And  give  her  to  the  god  of  storms, 

The  lightning  and  the  gale  1 

THE  LAST  LEAF. 

I  SAW  him  once  before, 
As  he  passed  by  the  door, 

And  again 

The  pavement  stones  resound, 
As  lie  totters  o'er  the  ground 

With  his  cane. 

They  say  that  in  his  prime, 
Ere  the  pruning-knife  of  time 
Cut  him  down, 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES.  249 

Not  a  better  man  was  found 
By  the  Crier  on  his  round 
Through  the  town. 

But  now  he  walks  the  streets, 
And  he  looks  at  all  he  meets 

Sad  and  wan, 

And  he  shakes  his  feeble  head, 
That  it  seems  as  if  he  said, 

"  They  are  gone." 

The  mossy  marbles  rest 

On  the  lips  that  he  has  pressed 

In  their  bloom, 

And  the  names  he  loved  to  hear 
Have  been  carved  for  many  a  year 

On  the  tomb. 

My  grandmamma  has  said — 
Poor  old  lady,  she  is  dead 

Long  ago— 

That  he  had  a  Roman  nose, 
And  his  cheek  was  like  a  rose 

In  the  snow. 

But  now  his  nose  is  thin, 
And  it  rests  upon  his  chin 

Like  a  staff, 

And  a  crook  is  in  his  back, 
And  a  melancholy  crack 

In  his  laugh. 

I  know  it  is  a  sin 
For  me  to  sit  and  grin 

At  him  here ; 

But  the  old  three-cornered  hat, 
And  the  breeches,  and  all  that, 

Are  so  queer! 

And  if  I  should  live  to  be 
The  last  leaf  upon  the  tree 
In  the  spring, 


250  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Let  them  smile,  as  T  do  now, 
At  the  old  forsaken  bough 
"Where  I  cling. 


MY  AUNT. 

MY  aunt!  my  dear,  unmarried  aunt! 

Long  years  have  o'er  her  flown  ; 
Yet  still  she  strains  the  aching  clasp 

That  binds  her  virgin  zone ; 
I  know  it  hurts  her,  though  she  looks 

As  cheerful  as  she  can; 
Her  waist  is  ampler  than  her  life, 

For  life  is  but  a  span. 

My  aunt!  my  poor  deluded  aunt! 

Her  hair  is  almost  gray ; 
"Why  will  she  train  that  winter  curl 

In  such  a  spring-like  way? 
How  can  she  lay  her  glasses  down, 

And  say  she  reads  as  well, 
When,  through  a  double  convex  lens, 

She  just  makes  out  to  spell? 

Her  father — grandpapa  !  forgive 

This  erring  lip  its  smiles — 
Vowed  she  should  make  the  finest  girl 

"Within  a  hundred  miles; 
He  sent  her  to  a  stylish  school ; 

'Twas  in  her  thirteenth  June ; 
And  with  her,  as  the  rules  required, 

"  Two  towels  and  a  spoon." 

They  braced  my  aunt  against  a  board, 

To  make  her  straight  and  tall ; 
They  laced  her  up,  they  starved  her  down, 

To  make  her  light  and  small ; 
They  pinched  her  feet,  they  singed  her  hair, 

They  screwed  it  up  with  pins; 
0,  never  mortal  suffered  more 

In  peuance  for  her  sins. 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES.  251 

So  when  my  precious  aunt  was  done, 

My  grandsire  brought  her  back 
(By  daylight,  lest  some  rabid  youth 

Might  follow  on  the  track); 
"  Ah  1  "  said  my  grandsire,  as  he  shook 

Some  powder  in  his  pan, 
"  What  could  this  lovely  creature  do 

Against  a  desperate  man  ?  " 

Alas  I  nor  chariot,  nor  barouche, 

Nor  bandit  cavalcade, 
Tore  from  the  trembling  father's  arms 

His  all-accomplished  maid. 
For  her  how  happy  had  it  been  1 

And  Heaven  had  spared  to  me 
To  see  one  sad  ungathered  rose 

On  my  ancestral  tree. 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 

To  HELEN. 

HELEN,  thy  beauty  is  to  me 

Like  those  Nicean  barks  of  yore, 

That  gently,  o'er  a  perfumed  sea, 
The  weary,  wayworn  wanderer  bore 
To  his  own  native  shore. 

On  desperate  seas  long  wont  to  roam, 
Thy  hyacinth  hair,  thy  classic  face, 

Thy  Naiad  airs  have  brought  me  home 
To  the  glory  that  was  Greece 

And  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome. 

Lo  !  in  yon  brilliant  window-niche 
How  statue-like  I  see  thee  stand, 
The  agate  lamp  within  thy  hand  ! 

Ah  !  Psyche,  from  the  regions  which 
Are  Holy  Land  1 


252  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 


To  ONE  IN  PARADISE. 

THOU  wast  that  all  to  me,  love, 

For  which  my  soul  did  pine  : 
A  green  isle  in  the  sea,  love, 

A  fountain  and  a  shrine 
All  wreathed  with  fairy  fruits  aud  flowers, 

And  all  the  flowers  were  mine. 


Ah,  dream  too  bright  to  last ! 

Ah,  starry  hope!  that  did'st  arise 
But  to  be  overcast ! 

A  voice  from  out  the  future  cries 
On  !  on  !     But  o'er  the  past 

(Dim  gulf!)  my  spirit  hovering  lies, 
Mute,  motionless,  aghast  I 

For,  alas !  alas !  with  me 

The  light  of  life  is  o'er. 

"  No  more — no  more — no  more — " 
(Such  language  holds  the  solemn  sea 

To  the  sands  upon  the  shore) 
Shall  bloom  the  thunder-blasted  tree, 

Or  the  stricken  eagle  soar  I 

And  all  my  days  are  trances, 
And  all  my  nightly  dreams 

Are  where  thy  dark  eye  glances, 
And  where  thy  footstep  gleams, — 

In  what  ethereal  dances, 
Bv  what  eternal  streams ! 


FROM  "TuE  FALL  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  USHER." 

AT  the  termination  of  this  sentence  I  started,  and  for  a  moment  paused ; 
for  it  appeared  to  me  (although  I  at  once  concluded  that  my  excited  fancy 
had  deceived  me) — it  appeared  to  me  that,  from  some  very  remote  portion 
of  the  mansion  there  came,  indistinctly,  to  my  ears  what  might  have  been, 
in  its  exact  similarity  of  character,  the  echo  (but  a  slifled  and  dull  one 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE.  253 

certainly)  of  the  very  cracking  and  ripping  sound  which  Sir  Launcelot  had 
so  particularly  described.  It  was,  beyond  doubt,  the  coincidence  alone  which 
had  arrested  my  attention;  for  amid  the  rattling  of  the  sashes  of  the  case 
ments,  and  the  ordinary  commingled  noises  of  the  still-increasing  storm, 
the  sound,  in  itself,  had  nothing,  surely,  which  should  have  interested  or 
disturbed  me.  I  continued  the  story. 

Here  again  I  paused  abruptly,  and  now  with  a  feeling  of  wild  amazement 
— for  there  could  be  no  doubt  whatever  that,  in  this  instance,  I  did  actually 
hear  (although  from  what  direction  it  proceeded  I  found  it  impossible  to 
say)  a  low  and  apparently  distant,  but  harsh,  protracted,  and  most  unusual 
screaming  or  grating  sound,  the  exact  counterpart  of  what  my  fancy  had 
already  conjured  up  for  the  dragon's  unnatural  shriek,  as  described  by  the 
romancer.  Oppressed,  as  I  certainly  was,  upon  the  occurrence  of  this  sec 
ond  and  most  extraordinary  coincidence,  by  a  thousand  conflicting  sensa 
tions,  in  which  wonder  and  extreme  terror  were  predominant,  I  still  retained 
sufficient  presence  of  mind  to  avoid  exciting,  by  any  observation,  the  sensi 
tive  nervousness  of  my  companion.  I  was  by  no  means  certain  that  he  had 
noticed  the  sounds  in  question ;  although,  assuredly,  a  strange  alteration 
had,  during  the  last  few  minutes,  taken  place  in  his  demeanor.  From  a 
position  fronting  my  own  he  had  gradually  brought  round  his  chair  so  as 
to  sit  with  his  face  to  the  door  of  the  chamber,  and  thus  I  could  but  par 
tially  perceive  his  features,  although  I  saw  that  his  lips  trembled  as  if  he 
were  murmuring  inaudibly.  His  head  had  dropped  upon  his  breast ;  yet  I 
knew  that  he  was  riot  asleep,  from  the  wide  and  rigid  opening  of  the  eye  as 
I  caught  a  glance  of  it  in  profile.  The  motion  of  his  body,  too,  was  at  vari 
ance  with  this  idea  ;  for  he  rocked  from  side  to  side  with  a  gentle  yet  con 
stant  and  uniform  sway.  Having  rapidly  taken  notice  of  all  this  I  resumed 
the  narrative  of  Sir  Launcelot. 

No  sooner  had  these  syllables  passed  my  lips  than — as  if  a  shield  of 
brass  had  indeed,  at  the  moment,  fallen  heavily  upon  a  floor  of  silver— I 
became  aware  of  a  distinct,  hollow,  metallic,  and  clangorous,  yet  apparently 
muffled, 'reverberation.  Completely  unnerved,  I  leaped  to  my  feet;  but  the 
measured,  rocking  movement  of  Usher  was  undisturbed.  I  rushed  to  the 
chair  in  which  he  sat.  His  eyes  were  bent  fixedly  before  him,  and  through 
out  his  whole  countenance  there  reigned  a  stony  rigidity.  But  as  I  placed 
my  hand  upon  his  shoulder  there  carne  a  strong  shudder  over  his  whole 
person ;  a  sickly  smile  quivered  about  his  lips ;  and  I  saw  that  he  spoke 
in  a  low,  hurried,  and  gibbering  manner,  as  if  unconscious  of  my  presence. 
Bending  closely  over  him,  I  at  length  drank  in  the  hideous  import  of  his  words. 


254  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

"Not  hear  it?  Yes,  I  hear  it,  and  have  heard  it.  Long — long — long — 
many  minutes,  many  hours,  many  days  have  I  heard  it — yet  1  dared 
not — 0,  pity  me,  miserable  wretch  that  I  am  1 — I  dared  not — I  dared  not 
speak  1  We  have  put  her  living  in  the  tomb  I  Said  I  not  that  my  senses 
were  acute  ?  I  now  tell  you  that  I  heard  her  first  feeble  movements  in  the 
hollow  coffin.  I  heard  them  many,  many  days  ago — yet  I  dared  not — I 
dared  not  speak  I  And  now — to-night — Ethelred — ha!  ha  !— the  breaking 
of  the  hermit's  door,  and  the  death-cry  of  the  dragon,  and  the  clangor  of 
the  shield  ! — say,  rather,  the  rending  of  her  coffin,  and  the  grating  of  the 
iron  hinges  of  her  prison,  and  her  struggles  within  the  coppered  archway 
of  the  vault !  0,  whither  shall  I  fly  ?  "Will  she  not  be  here  anon  ?  Is  she 
not  hurrying  to  upbraid  me  for  my  haste  ?  Have  I  not  heard  her  footstep 
on  the  stair  ?  Do  I  not  distinguish  that  heavy  and  horrible  beating  of  her 
heart  ?  Madman  1  " — here  he  sprang  furiously  to  his  feet  and  shrieked  out 
his  syllables,  as  if  in  the  effort  he  were  giving  up  his  soul — "Madman!  I 
tell  you  that  she  now  stands  without  the  door  1 " 

As  if  in  the  superhuman  energy  of  his  utterance  there  had  been  found  the 
potency  of  a  spell,  the  huge  antique  panels  to  which  the  speaker  pointed  threw 
slowly  back,  upon  the  instant,  their  ponderous  and  ebony  jaws.  It  was  the  work 
of  the  rushing  gust ;  but  then  without  those  doors  there  did  stand  the  lofty 
and  enshrouded  figure  of  the  Lady  Madeline  of  Usher.  There  was  blood 
upon  her  white  robes,  and  the  evidence  of  some  bitter  struggle  upon  every 
portion  of  her  emaciated  frame.  For  a  moment  she  remained  trembling 
and  reeling  to  and  fro  upon  the  threshold — then,  with  a  low,  moaning  cry, 
fell  heavily  inward  upon  the  person  of  her  brother,  and,  in  her  violent  and 
now  final  death-agonies,  bore  him  to  the  floor  a  corpse  and  a  victim  to  the 
terrors  he  had  anticipated. 

From  that  chamber  and  from  that  mansion  I  fled  aghast.  The  storm  was 
still  abroad  in  all  its  wrath  as  I  found  myself  crossing  the  old  causeway. 
Suddenly  there  shot  along  the  path  a  wild  light,  and  I  turned  to  see  whence 
a  gleam  so  unusual  could  have  issued,  for  the  vast  house  and  its  shadows 
were  alone  behind  me.  The  radiance  was  that  of  the  full,  setting,  and 
blood-red  moon,  which  now  shone  vividly  through  that  once  barely  discern 
ible  fissure  of  which  I  have  before  spoken  as  extending  from  the  roof  of 
the  building,  in  a  zigzag  direction,  to  the  base.  "While  I  gazed  this  fissure 
rapidly  widened ;  there  came  a  fierce  breath  of  the  whirlwind — the  entire 
orb  of  the  satellite  burst  at  once  upon  my  sight — my  brain  reeled  as  I  saw 
the  mighty  walls  rushing  asunder — there  was  a  long,  tumultuous,  shouting 
sound  like  the  voice  of  a  thousand  waters — and  the  deep  and  dark  tarn  at 
my  feet  closed  sullenly  and  silently  over  the  fragments  of  the  House  of 
Usher. 


NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS.  255 

NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

UNSEEN  SPIRITS. 

THE  shadows  lay  along  Broadway, 

'Twas  near  the  twilight  tide — 
And  slowly  there  a  lady  fair 

"Was  walking  in  her  pride. 
Alone  walked  she ;  but,  viewlessly, 

Walked  spirits  at  her  side. 

Peace  charmed  the  street  beneath  her  feet, 

Arid  Honor  charmed  the  air  ; 
And  all  astir  looked  kind  on  her, 

And  called  her  good  as  fair — 
For  all  God  ever  gave  to  her 

She  kept  with  chary  care. 

She  kept  with  care  her  beauties  rare 

From  lovers  warm  and  true ; 
For  her  heart  was  cold  to  all  but  gold, 

And  the  rich  came  not  to  woo ; 
But  honored  well  are  charms  to  sell, 

If  priests  the  selling  do. 

Now  walking  there  was  one  more  fair — 

A  slight  girl,  lily-pale; 
And  she  had  unseen  company 

To  make  the  spirit  quail — 
'Twixt  Want  and  Scorn  she  walked  forlorn, 

And  nothing  could  avail. 

No  mercy  now  can  clear  her  brow 

For  this  world's  peace  to  pray; 
For,  as  love's  wild  prayer  dissolved  in  air, 

Her  woman's  heart  gave  way ! 
But  the  sin  forgiven  by  Christ  in  heaven 

By  man  is  cursed  alway. 

NAIIANT. 

HERE  we  are,  then,  in  the  "  Swallow's  Cave."  The  floor  descends  by  a 
gentle  declivity  to  the  sea,  and  from  the  long  dark  cleft  stretching  outward 
you  look  forth  upon  the  Atlantic— the  shore  of  Ireland  the  first  terra  firma 


256  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

in  the  path  of  your  eye.  Here  is  a  dark  pool,  left  by  the  retreating  tide  for 
a  refrigerator ;  and  with  the  champagne  in  the  midst  we  will  recline  about 
it  like  the  soft  Asiatics  of  whom  we  learned  pleasure  in  the  East,  and  drink 
to  the  small-featured  and  purple-lipped  "Mignons"  of  Syria — those  fine- 
limbed  and  fiery  slaves  adorable  as  peris,  and  by  turns  languishing  and 
stormy,  whom  you  buy  for  a  pinch  of  piastres  (say  £5  5s.)  in  sunny  Damas 
cus.  Your  drowsy  Circassian,  faint  and  dreamy,  or  your  crockery  Georgian 
— lit  dolls  for  the  sensual  Turk — is,  to  him  who  would  buy  soul,  dear  at  a 
penny  the  hecatomb. 

We  recline,  as  it  were,  in  an  ebon  pyramid  with  a  hundred  feet  of  floor 
and  sixty  of  wall,  and  the  fourth  side  open  to  the  sky.  The  light  comes  in 
mellow  and  dim,  and  the  sharp  edges  of  the  rocky  portal  seem  let  into  the 
pearly  heaven.  The  tide  is  at  half-ebb,  and  the  advancing  and  retreating 
waves,  which  at  first  just  lifted  the  fringe  of  crimson  dulse  at  the  lip  of  the 
cavern,  now  dash  their  spray-pearls  on  the  rock  below,  the  "  tenth  "  surge 
alone  rallying  as' if  in  scorn  of  its  retreating  fellow,  and,  like  the  chieftain  of 
Culloden  Moor,  rushing  back  singly  to  the  contest.  And  now  that  the 
waters  reach  the  entrance  no  more,  come  forward  and  look  on  the  sea  !  The 
swell  lifts!  Would  you  not  think  the  bases  of  the  earth  rising  beneath  it? 
It  falls!  "Would  you  not  think  the  foundation  of  the  deep  had  given  way? 
A  plain,  broad-  enough  for  the  navies  of  the  world  to  ride  at  large,  heaves 
up  evenly  and  steadily  as  if  it  would  lie  against  the  sky,  rests  a  moment 
spell-bound  in  its  place,  and  falls  again  as  far — the  respiration  of  a  sleeping 
child  not  more  regular  and  full  of  slumber.  It  is  only  on  the  shore  that  it 
chafes.  Blessed  emblem  I  it  is  at  peace  with  itself!  The  rocks  war  with  a 
nature  so  unlike  their  own,  and  the  hoarse  din  of  their  border  onsets  resounds 
through  the  caverns  they  have  rent  open ;  but  beyond,  in  the  calm  bosom  of 
the  ocean,  what  heavenly  dignity  1  what  godlike  unconsciousness  of  alarm! 
I  did  not  think  we  should  stumble  on  such  a  moral  in  the  cave  I 

By  the  deeper  bass  of  its  hoarse  organ  the  sea  is  now  playing  upon  its 
lowest  stops,  and  the  tide  is  down.  Hear  how  it  rushes  in  beneath  the 
rocks,  broken  and  stilled  in  its  tortuous  way,  till  it  ends  with  a  washing 
and  dull  hiss  among  the  sea-weed,  and,  like  a  myriad  of  small  tinkling  bells, 
the  dripping  from  the  crags  is  audible.  .  There  is  fine  music  in  the  sea! 

And  now  the  beach  is  bare.  The  cave  begins  to  cool  and  darken,  and 
the  first  gold  tint  of  sunset  is  stealing  into  the  sky,  arid  the  sea  looks  of  a 
changing  opal,  green,  purple,  and  white,  aa  if  its  floor  were  paved  with 
pearl,  and  the  changing  light  struck  up  through  the  waters.  And  there 
heaves  a  ship  into  the  horizon  like  a  white-winged  bird,  lying  with  dark 
breast  on  the  waves,  abandoned  of  the  sea-breeze  within  sight  of  port,  and 
repelled  even  by  the  spicy  breath  that  comes  with  a  welcome  off  the  shore. 


NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS.  257 

She  comes  from  "  Merry  England."  She  is  freighted  with  more  than  mer 
chandise.  The  home-sick  exile  will  gaze  on  her  snowy  sail  as  she  sets  in 
with  the  morning  breeze,  and  bless  it,  for  the  wind  that  first  filled  it  on  its 
way  swept  through  the  green  valley  of  his  home  1  What  links  of  human 
affection  brings  she  over  the  sea  ?  How  much  comes  in  her  that  is  not  in 
her  "  bill  of  lading,"  yet  worth  to  the  heart  that  is  waiting  for  it  a  thousand 
times  the  purchase  of  her  whole  venture  1 

Mais  montons  nous!  I  hear  the  small  hoofs  of  Thalaba;  my  stanhope 
waits;  we  will  leave  this  half  bottle  of  champagne,  that  "  remainder  bis 
cuit,"  and  the  echoes  of  our  philosophy  to  the  Naiads  who  have  lent  us 
their  drawing-room.  Undine,  or  Egeria  1  Lurly,  or  Aretlmsa  I  whatever 
thou  art  called,  nymph  of  this  shadowy  cave  1  adieu ! 

Slowly,  Thalaba!  Tread  gingerly  down  this  rocky  descent!  So!  Here 
we  are  on  the  floor  of  the  vasty  deep !  What  a  glorious  race-course !  The 
polished  and  printless  sand  spreads  away  before  you  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see, 
the  surf  comes  in  below  breast-high  ere  it  breaks  and  the  white  fringe  of 
the  sliding  wave  shoots  up  the  beach,  but  leaves  room  for  the  marching  of 
a  Persian  phalanx  on  the  sands  it  has  deserted.  0,  how  noiselessly  runs 
the  wheel,  and  how  dreamily  we  glide  along,  feeling  our  motion  but  in  the 
resistance  of  the  wind  and  in  the  trout-like  pull  of  the  ribands  by  the 
excited  animal  before  us.  Mark  the  color  of  the  sand !  White  at  high- 
water  mark,  and  thence  deepening  to  a  silvery  gray  as  the  water  has  evap 
orated  less,  a  slab  of  Egyptian  granite  in  the  obelisk  of  St.  Peter's  not  more 
polished  and  unimpressible.  Shell  or  rock,  weed  or  quicksand,  there  is 
none ;  and,  mar  or  deface  its  bright  surface  as  you  will,  it  is  ever  beaten 
down  anew,  and  washed  even  of  the  dust  of  the  foot  of  man  by  the  return 
ing  sea.  You  may  write  upon  its  fine-grained  face  with  a  crow-quill — you 
may  course  over  its  dazzling  expanse  with  a  troop  of  chariots. 

Most  wondrous  and  beautiful  of  all,  within  twenty  yards  of  the  surf,  or 
for  an  hour  after  the  tide  has  left  the  sand,  it  holds  the  water  without  losing 
its  firmness,  and  is  like  a  gay  mirror,  bright  as  the  bosom  of  the  sea.  (By 
your  leave,  Thalaba !)  And  now  lean  over  the  dasher  and  see  those  small 
fetlocks  striking  up  from  beneath — the  flying  mane,  the  thoroughbred  ac 
tion,  the  small  and  expressive  head,  as  perfect  in  the  reflection  as  in  the  real 
ity  ;  like  Wordsworth's  swan,  he 

"  Trots  double,  horse  and  shadow." 

You  would  swear  you  were  skimming  the  surface  of  the  sea ;  and  the 
delusion  is  more  complete  as  the  white  foam  of  the  "  tenth  wave  "  skims  in 
beneath  wheel  and  hoof,  and  you  urge  on  with  the  treacherous  element 
gliding  away  visibly  beneath  you. 
17 


258  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

HENBY  DAVID   THOKEATJ. 

THE  WINTER  WOODS. 

[From  Excursions.  ] 

THERE  is  a  slumbering  subterranean  fire  in  nature  which  never  goes  out, 
and  which  no  cold  can  chill.  It  finally  melts  the  great  snow,  arid  in  Jan 
uary  or  July  is  only  buried  under  a  thicker  or  thinner  covering.  In  the 
coldest  day  it  flows  somewhere,  and  the  snow  melts  around  every  tree. 
This  field  of  winter  rye  which  sprouted  late  in  the  fall  and  now  speedily 
dissolves  the  snow  is  where  the  fire  is  very  thinly  covered.  We  feel 
warmed  by  it.  In  the  winter  warmth  stands  for  all  virtue,  and  we  resort  in 
thought  to  a  trickling  rill,  with  its  bare  stones  shining  in  the  sun,  and  to 
warm  springs  in  the  woods,  with  as  much  eagerness  as  rabbits  and  robins. 
The  steam  which  rises  from  swamps  and  pools  is  as  dear  and  domestic  as 
that  of  our  own  kettle.  What  fire  could  ever  equal  the  sunshine  of  a  win 
ter's  day,  when  the  meadow-mice  come  out  by  the  wall-sides,  and  the  chick 
adee  lisps  in  the  defiles  of  the  wood?  The  warmth  comes  directly  from  the 
sun,  and  is  not  radiated  from  the  earth  as  in  summer;  and  when  we  feel  his 
beams  on  our  backs  as  we  are  treading  some  snowy  dell  we  are  grateful  as  for 
a  special  kindness,  and  bless  the  sun  which  has  followed  us  into  that  by-place. 

This  subterranean  fire  has  its  altar  in  each  man's  breast,  for  in  the  coldest 
day,  and  on  the  bleakest  hill,  the  traveler  cherishes  a  warmer  fire  within  the 
folds  of  his  cloak  than  is  kindled  on  any  hearth.  A  healthy  man,  indeed,  is 
the  complement  of  the  seasons,  and  in  winter  summer  is  in  his  heart.  There 
is  the  South.  Thither  have  all  birds  and  insects  migrated,  and  around  the 
warm  springs  in  his  breast  are  gathered  the  robin  and  the  lark. 

At  length,  having  reached  the  edge  of  the  woods  arid  shut  out  the  gadding 
town,  we  enter  within  their  covert  as  we  go  under  the  roof  of  a  cottage,  and 
cross  its  threshold,  all  ceiled  and  banked  up  with  snow.  They  are  glad  and 
warm  still,  and  as  genial  and  cheery  in  winter  as  in  summer.  As  we  stand  in 
the  midst  of  the  pines,  in  the  flickering  and  checkered  light  which  straggles 
but  little  way  into  their  maze,  we  wonder  if  the  towns  have  ever  heard  their 
simple  story.  It  seems  to  us  that  no  traveler  has  ever  explored  them,  and 
notwithstanding  the  wonders  which  science  is  elsewhere  revealing  every 
day,  who  would  not  like  to  hear  their  annals?  Our  humble  villages  in  the 
plain  are  their  contribution.  We  borrow  from  the  forest  the  boards  which 
shelter  and  the  sticks  which  warm  us.  How  important  is  their  evergreen 
to  the  winter,  that  portion  of  the  summer  which  does  not  fade,  the  perma 
nent  year,  the  unwithered  grass.  Thus  simply  and  with  little  expense  of 
altitude  is  the  surface  of  the  earth  diversified.  What  would  human  life  be 
without  forests,  those  natural  cities?  From  the  tops  of  mountains  they 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU.  259 

appear  like  smooth-shaven  lawns ;  yet  whither  shall  we  walk  but  in  this 
taller  grass? 

In  this  glade  covered  with  bushes  of  a  year's  growth  see  how  the  silvery 
dust  lies  on  every  seared  leaf  and  twig,  deposited  in  such  infinite  and  luxu 
rious  forms  as  by  their  very  variety  atofie  for  the  absence  of  color.  Ob 
serve  the  tiny  tracks  of  mice  around  every  stem,  and  the  triangular  tracks 
of  the  rabbit.  A  pure  elastic  heaven  hangs  over  all,  as  if  the  impurities  of 
the  summer  sky,  refined  and  shrunk  by  the  chaste  winter's  cold,  had  been 
winnowed  by  the  heavens  upon  the  earth. 

Nature  confounds  her  summer  distinctions  at  this  season.  The  heavens 
seem  to  be  nearer  the  earth.  The  elements  are  less  reserved  and  distinct. 
Water  turns  to  ice;  rain  to  snow.  The  day  is  but  a  Scandinavian  night. 
The  winter  is  an  arctic  summer. 

How  much  more  living  is  the  life  that  is  in  nature,  the  furred  life  which 
still  survives  the  stinging  nights,  and,  from  amidst  fields  and  woods  covered 
with  frost  and  snow,  sees  the  sun  rise ! 

"  The  foodless  wilds 
Pour  forth  their  brown  inhabitants." 

The  gray  squirrel  and  rabbit  are  brisk  and  playful  in  the  remote  glens, 
even  on  the  morning  of  the  cold  Friday.  Here  is  our  Lapland  and  Labra. 
dor;  and  for  our  Esquimaux  and  Knistenaux,  Dog-ribbed  Indians,  Novazem- 
blaites,  and  Spitzbergeners,  are  there  not  the  ice-cutter  and  wood-chopper, 
the  fox,  musk-rat,  and  mink? 

Still,  in  the  midst  of  the  arctic  day  we  may  trace  the  summer  to  its  re 
treats  and  sympathize  with  some  contemporary  life.  Stretched  over  the 
brooks,  in  the  midst  of  the  frost-bound  meadows,  \ve  may  observe  the  subma 
rine  cottages  of  the  caddice-worms,  the  larvae  of  the  Plicipennes.  Their  small 
cylindrical  cases  built  around  themselves,  composed  of  flags,  sticks  gmss, 
and  withered  leaves,  shells  and  pebbles,  in  form  and  color  like  the  wrecks 
which  strew  the  bottom,  now  drifting  along  over  the  pebbly  bottom,  now 
whirling  in  tiny  eddies  and  dashing  down  steep  falls,  or  sweeping  rapidly 
along  with  the  current,  or  else  swaying  to  and  fro  at  the  end  of  some  grass- 
blade  or  root.  Anon  they  will  leave  their  sunken  habitations,  and,  crawling 
up  the  stems  of  plants  or  to  the  surface  like  gnats,  as  perfect  insects  hence- 
forih,  flutter  over  the  surface  of  the  water  or  sacrifice  their  short  lives  in 
the  flame  of  our  candle  at  evening.  Down  yonder  little  glen  the  shrubs 
are  drooping  under  their  burden,  arid  the  red  alder-berries  contrast  with  the 
white  ground.  Here  are  the  marks  of  a  myriad  feet  which  have  already 
been  abroad.  The  sun  rises  as  proudly  over  such  a  glen  as  over  the  valley 
of  the  Seine  or  Tiber,  and  it  seems  the  residence  of  a  pure  and  self-subsistent 
valor  such  as  they  never  witnessed,  which  never  knew  defeat  or  fear. 


260  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Here  reign  the  simplicity  and  purity  of  a  primitive  age  and  a  health  and 
hope  far  remote  from  towns  and  cities.  Standing  quite  alone,  far  in  the  forest, 
while  the  wind  is  shaking  down  snow  from  the  trees,  and  leaving  the  only 
human  tracks  behind  us,  we  find  our  reflections  of  a  richer  variety  than  the 
life  of  cities.  The  chickadee  and  nut-liatch  are  more  inspiring  society  than 
statesmen  and  philosophers,  and  wo  shall  return  to  these  last  as  to  more 
vulgar  companions.  In  this  lonely  glen,  with  the  brook  draining  the  slopes, 
its  creased  ice  and  crystals  of  all  hues,  where  the  spruces  and  hemlocks 
stand  up  on  either  side,  and  the  rush  and  sere  wild  oats  in  the  rivulet  itself, 
our  lives  are  more  serene  and  worthy  to  contemplate. 

As  the  day  advances,  the  heat  of  the  sun  is  reflected  by  the  hill-sides,  and 
we  hear  a  faint  but  sweet  music  where  flows  the  rill  released  from  its  fet 
ters,  and  the  icicles  are  melting  on  the  trees,  and  the  nut-hatch  and  par 
tridge  are  heard  and  seen.  The  south  wind  melts  the  snow  at  noon,  and 
the  bare  ground  appears  with  its  withered  grass  and  leaves,  arid  we  are 
invigorated  by  the  perfume  which  exhales  from  it  as  by  the  scent  of  strong 
meats. 

Let  us  go  into  this  deserted  woodman's  hut,  and  see  how  he  has  passed 
the  long  winter  nights  and  the  short  and  stormy  days.  For  here  man  has 
lived  under  this  south  hill-side,  and  it  seems  a  civilized  and  public  spot. 
We  have  such  associations  as  when  the  traveler  stands  by  the  ruins  of  Pal 
myra  or  Hecatompolis.  Singing  birds  and  flowers  perchance  have  begun 
to  appear  here,  for  flowers  as  well  as  weeds  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  man. 
These  hemlocks  whispered  over  his  head,  these  hickory  logs  were  his  fuel, 
and  these  pitch-pine  roots  kindled  his  fire;  yonder  fuming  rill  in  the  hollow, 
whose  thin  and  airy  vapor  still  ascends  as  busily  as  ever,  though  he  is  far 
off'  now,  was  his  well.  These  hemlock  boughs,  and  the  straw  upon  this 
raised  platform,  were  his  bed,  and  this  broken  dish  held  his  drink.  But  he 
has  not  been  here  this  season,  for  the  phcebes  built  their  nest  upon  this 
shelf  last  summer.  I  find  some  embers  left,  as  if  he  had  but  just  gone  out, 
where  he  baked  his  pot  of  beans;  and  while  at  evening  he  smoked  his  pipe, 
whose  stemless  bowl  lies  in  the  ashes,  chatted  with  his  only  companion,  if 
perchance  he  had  any,  about  the  depth  of  the  snow  on  the  morrow,  already 
falling  fast  and  thick  without,  or  disputed  whether  the  last  sound  was  the 
screech  of  an  owl  or  the  creak  of  a  bough,  or  imagination  only;  and  through 
this  broad  chimney-throat,  in  the  late  winter  evening,  ere  he  stretched  him 
self  upon  the  straw,  he  looked  up  to  learn  the  progress  of  the  storm,  and, 
seeing  the  bright  stars  of  Cassiopeia's  chair  shining  brightly  down  upon  him, 
fell  contentedly  asleep. 

See  how  many  traces  from  which  we  may  learn  the  chopper's  history. 
From  this  stump  we  may  guess  the  sharpness  of  his  ax,  and  from  the  slope 


HENRY  DAVID  TIIOREAU.  261 

of  tlie  stroke,  on  which  sido  lie  stood,  and  whether  he  cut  down  the  tree 
without  going  round  it  or  changing  hands ;  and  from  the  flexure  of  the 
splinters,  we  may  know  which  way  it  fell.  This  one  chip  contains  inscribed 
on  it  the  whole  history  of  the  wood-chopper  and  of  the  world.  On  this 
scrap  of  paper,  which  held  his  sugar  or  salt  perchance,  or  was  the  wadding 
of  his  gun,  sitting  on  a  log  in  the  forest,  with  what  interest  we  read  the 
tattle  of  cities,  of  those  larger  huts,  empty  and  to  let,  like  this,  in  High 
Streets  and  Broadways. 


"WALT  WHITMAN. 
THE  MIRACLES  OF  NATURE. 

[From  Leaves  of  Gross.] 

To  me  every  hour  of  the  light  and  dark  is  a  miracle, 

Every  inch  of  space  is  a  miracle, 

Every  square  yard  of  the  surface  of  the  earth  is  spread  with  the  same, 

Every  cubic  foot  of  the  interior  swarms  with  the  same. 

To  me  the  sea  is  a  continual  miracle, 

The  fishes  that  swim — the  rocks— the  motion  of  the  waves — the  ships  with 

men  in  them, 
What  stranger  miracles  are  there  ? 

I  was  thinking  the  day  most  splendid,  till  T  saw  what  the  not-day  exhibited ; 
I  was  thinking  this  globe  enough,  till  there  tumbled  upon  me  myriads  of 

other  globes : 
0,  how  plainly  I  see  now  that  this  life  cannot  exhibit  all  to  me — aa  the 

day  cannot; 
0,  I  see  that  I  am  to  wait  for  what  will  be  exhibited  by  death. 

0  Death! 

0,  the  beautiful  touch  of  Death,  soothing  and  benumbing  a  few  moments, 
for  reasons. 

The  earth  never  tires, 

The  earth  is  rude,  silent,  incomprehensible  at  first — 

Nature  is  rude  and  incomprehensible  at  first; 

Be  not  discouraged — keep  on — there  are  divine  things,  well  enveloped; 

1  swear  to  you  there  are  divine  things  more  beautiful  than  words  can  tell. 


262  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 


O  CAPTAIN!     MY  CAPTAIN! 

0  captain  1  my  captain  !  our  fearful  trip  is  done ; 
The  ship  has  weathered  every  rack,  the  prize  we' sought  is  won  ; 
The  port  is  near,  the  bells  I  hear,  the  people  all  exulting, 
While  follow  eyes  the  steady  keel,  the  vessel  grim  and  daring : 
But  0  heart  1  heart !  heart  1 
Leave  you  not  the  little  spot 

"Where  on  the  deck  my  captain  lies, 
Fallen  cold  and  dead. 

0  captain  I  my  captain  I  rise  up  and  hear  the  bells  ; 
Rise  up — for  you  the  flag  is  flung — for  you  the  bugle  trills; 
For  you  bouquets  and  ribboned  wreaths — for  you  the  shores  a-crowding; 
For  you  they  call,  the  swaying  mass,  their  eager  faces  turning; 
0  captain  1  dear  father ! 

This  arm  I  push  beneath  you ; 
It  is  some  dream  that  on  the  deck 
You've  fallen  cold  and  dead. 

My  captain  does  not  answer,  his  lips  are  pale  and  still ; 
My  father  does  not  feel  my  arm,  he  has  no  pulse  nor  will  ; 
But  the  ship,  the  ship  is  anchored  safe,  its  voyage  closed  and  done; 
From  fearful  trip  the  victor  ship  comes  in  with  object  won ; 
Exult,  0  shores,  and  ring,  0  bells  1 
But  I,  with  silent  tread, 

"Walk  the  spot  my  captain  lies, 
Fallen  cold  and  dead. 


JAMES  RUSSELL,  LOWELL, 

THE  COURTIN'. 

ZEKLE  crep'  up,  quite  unbeknown, 
An'  peeked  in  thru  the  winder, 

An'  there  sot  Huldy  all  alone, 
'ith  no  one  nigh  to  hender. 

Agin  the  chimbly  crooknecks  hung, 

An'  in  amongst  'em  rusted 
The  ole  queen's  arm  thet  Gran'ther  Young 

Fetched  back  from  Concord  busted. 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  263 

The  wannut  logs  shot  sparkles  out 

Toward  the  pootiest,  bless  herl 
An'  leetle  fires  danced  all  about 

The  chiny  011  the  dresser. 

The  very  room,  coz  she  wuz  in, 

Looked  warm  from  floor  to  ceil  in', 
An'  she  looked  full  ez  rosy  agin 

Ez  tli'  apples -she  wuz  peelin'. 

She  heerd  a  foot  an'  knowed  it,  tu, 

A-raspin'  on  the  scraper; 
All  ways  to  once  her  feelin's  flew 

Like  sparks  in  burnt-up  paper. 

He  kin'  o'  1'itered  on  the  mat, 

Some  doubtfle  o'  the  seekle; 
His  heart  kep'  goin'  pitypat, 

But  hern  went  pity  Zekle. 


THE  Pious  EDITOR'S  CREED. 

[From  Biglow  Papers.] 
I  DU  believe  in  Freedom's  causa 

Ez  fur  away  as  Paris  is; 
I  love  to  see  her  stick  her  clawn 

In  them  infarnal  Pharisees ; 
It's  wal  enough  agin  a  king 

To  dror  resolves  an'  triggers— 
But  libbaty's  a  kind  o'  thing 

Thet  don't  agree  with  niggers. 

I  du  believe  the  people  want 

A  tax  on  teas  an'  coffees, 
Thet  nothin'  aint  extra vygunt, 

Pervidin'  I'm  in  office; 
Fer  I  hev  loved  my  country  sence 

My  eye-teeth  tilled  their  sockets, 
An'  Uncle  Sam  I  reverence — 

Partic'larly  his  pockets. 

I  du  believe  in  any  plan 
0'  levyin'  the  taxes, 


204  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

Ez  long  ez,  like  a  lumberman, 

I  git  jest  vvut  I  axes : 
I  go  free-trade  thru  thick  an'  thin, 

Because  it  kind  o'  rouses 
The  folks  to  vote — an'  keeps  us  in 

Our  quiet  custom-houses. 

I  du  believe  with  all  my  soul 

In  the  gret  Press's  freedom, 
To  pint  the  people  to  the  goal 

An'  in  tho  traces  lead  'em  ; 
Palsied  the  arm  thet  forges  jokes 

At  my  fat  contracts  squintin', 
An'  withered  be  the  nose  that  pokes 

Inter  the  gov'ment  printin'  1 

I  du  believe  thet  I  should  give 

"Wut's  his'n  unto  Caesar, 
Fer  it's  by  him  I  move  an'  live, 

Frum  him  my  bread  and  cheese  air; 
I  du  believe  thet  all  o'  me 

Doth  bear  his  souperscription, — 
Will,  conscience,  honor,  honesty, 

An'  things  o'  thet  description. 

I  du  believe  in  prayer  an'  praise 

To  him  thet  hez  the  grantin' 
0' jobs, — in  every  thin1  that  pays, 

But  most  of  all  in  CANTIN' ; 
This  doth  my  cup  with  marcies  fill, 

This  lays  all  thought  o'  sin  to  rest, — 
I  don't  believe  in  princerple, 

But,  0,  I  du  in  interest. 

I  du  believe  in  bein'  this 

Or  thet,  ez  it  may  happen 
One  way  or  t'other  hendiest  is 

To  ketch  the  people  nappin' ; 
It  aint  by  princerples  nor  men 

My  preudent  course  is  steadied, — 
I  scent  wich  pays  the  best,  an'  thea 

Go  into  it  baldheaded. 


JAMES  RUSSELL   LOWELL.  265 

I  du  believe  tlict  holdin'  slaves 

Comes  nat'ral  tu  a  Presidunt, 
Let  'lone  the  rowdedow  it  saves 

To  hev  a  wal-broke  precedunt ; 
Fer  any  office,  small  or  gret, 

I  couldn't  ax  with  no  face, 
Without  I'd  ben,  thru  dry  an"  wet, 

Th'  unrizzest  kind  o'  doughface. 

I  du  believe  wutever  trash 

'11  keep  the  people  in  blindness, — 
Thet  we  the  Mexicuns  can  thrash 

Right  inter  brotherly  kindness ; 
Thet  bombshells,  grape,  an'  powder  V  ball 

Air  good- will's  strongest  magnets; 
Thet  peace,  to  make  it  stick  at  all, 

Must  be  druv  in  with  bagnets. 

In  short,  I  firmly  du  believe 

In  Humbug  generally, 
Fer  it's  a  thing  that  I  perceive 

To  hev  a  solid  vally ; 
This  heth  my  faithful  shepherd  ben, 

In  pasturs  sweet  heth  led  me, 
An'  this  '11  keep  the  people  green 

To  feed  ez  they  hev  fed  me. 


EDWARD    EVERETT    HALE. 
[From  Ttie  Man  Without  a  Country.*] 

THE  rule  adopted  on  board  the  ships  on  which  I  have  met  "  the  man 
without  a  country  "  was,  I  think,  transmitted  from  the  beginning.  No  mess 
liked  to  have  him  permanently,  because  his  presence  cut  off  all  talk  of 
home  or  of  the  prospect  of  return,  of  politics  or  letters,  of  peace  or  of 
war — cut  off  more  than  half  the  talk  men  liked  to  have  at  sea.  But  it  was 
always  thought  too  hard  that  he  should  never  meet  the  rest  of  us  except 
to  touch  hats,  and  we  finally  sank  into  one  system.  He  was  not  permitted 
to  talk  with  the  men  unless  an  officer  was  by.  With  officers  he  had 

» See  page  195. 


266  INITIAL  STUDIES  ix  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

unrestrained  intercourse,  as  far  as  lie  and  they  chose.  But  lie  grew  shy, 
though  he  had  favorites ;  I  was  one.  Then  the  captain  always  asked  him 
to  dinner  on  Monday.  Every  mess  in  succession  took  up  the  invitation  in 
its  turn.  According  to  the  size  of  the  ship,  you  had  him  at  your  mess  more 
or  less  often  at  dinner.  His  breakfast  he  ate  in  his  own  state-room — he 
always  had  a  state-room — which  was  where  a  sentinel  or  somebody  on  the 
watch  could  see  the  door.  And  whatever  else  he  ate  or  drank,  he  ate  or 
drank  alone.  Sometimes,  when  the  marines  or  sailors  had  any  special  jol 
lification,  they  were  permitted  to  invite  "  Plain-Buttons,"  as  they  called  him. 
Then  Nolan  was  sent  with  some  officer,  and  the  men  were  forbidden  to 
speak  of  home  while  he  was  there.  I  believe  the  theory  was  that  the  sight 
of  his  punishment  did  them  good.  They  called  him  "Plain-Buttons"  be 
cause,  while  he  always  chose  to  wear  a  regulation  army  uniform,  he  was  not 
permitted  to  wear  the  army  button,  for  the  reason  that  it  bore  either  the 
initials  or  the  insignia  of  the  country  he  had  disowned. 

I  remember  soon  after  I  joined  the  navy  I  was  on  shore  with  some  of  the 
older  officers  from  our  ship  and  from  the  Brandywine,  which  we  had  met  at 
Alexandria.  We  had  leave  to  make  a  party  and  go  up  to  Cairo  and  the  Pyra 
mids.  As  we  jogged  along  (you  went  on  donkeys  then),  some  of  the  gentle 
men  (we  boys  called  them  "  Dons,"  but  the  phrase  was  long  since  changed) 
fell  to  talking  about  Nolan,  and  some  one  told  the  system  which  was  adopted 
from  the  first  about  his  books  and  other  reading.  As  he  was  almost  never  per 
mitted  to  go  on  shore,  even  though  the  vessel  lay  in  port  for  months,  his  time 
at  the  best  hung  heavy ;  and  every  body  was  permitted  to  lend  him  books, 
if  they  were  not  published  in  America,  and  made  no  allusion  to  it.  These 
were  common  enough  in  the  old  days,  when  people  in  the  other  hemisphere 
talked  of  the  United  States  as  little  as  we  do  of  Paraguay.  He  had  almost 
all  the  foreign  papers  that  came  into  the  ship,  sooner  or  later ;  only  some 
body  must  go  over  them  first,  and  cut  out  any  advertisement  or  stray  para 
graph  that  alluded  to  America.  This  was  a  little  cruel  sometimes,  when 
the  back  of  what  was  cut  might  be  as  innocent  as  Hesiod.  Eight  in  the 
midst  of  one  of  Napoleon's  battles,  or  one  of  Canning's  speeches,  poor  Nolan 
would  find  a  great  hole,  because  on  the  back  of  Hie  page  of  that  paper  there 
had  been  an  advertisement  of  a  packet  for  New  York,  or  a  scrap  from  the 
President's  message.  I  say  this  was  the  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  this  plan, 
which  afterward  I  had  enough  and  more  than  enough  to  do  with.  I  re 
member  it,  because  poor  Phillips,  who  was  of  the  party,  as  soon  as  the  allusion 
to  reading  was  made,  told  a  story  of  something  which  happened  at  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope  on  Nolan's  first  voyage ;  and  it  is  the  only  thing  I  ever 
knew  of  that  voyage.  They  had  touched  at  the  Cape,  and  had  done  the 
civil  thing  with  the.  English  admiral  and  the  fleet,  and  then,  leaving  for  a 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.  267 

long  cruise  up  the  Indian  Ocean,  Phillips  bad  borrowed  a  lot  of  English 
books  from  an  officer,  which,  in  those  days,  as  indeed  in  these,  was  quite  a 
windfall.  Among  them,  as  the  devil  would  order,  was  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Min 
strel,  which  they  had  all  of  them  heard  of,  but  which  most  of  them  had  never 
seen.  I  think  it  could  not  have  been  published  long.  Well,  nobody  thought 
there  could  be  any  risk  of  any  thing  national  in  that,  though  Phillips  swore 
old  Shaw  had  cut  out  the  "  Tempest "  from  Shakespeare  before  he  let  Nolan 
have  it,  because  he  said  "  the  Bermudas  qught  to  be  ours,  and,  by  Jove, 
should  be  one  day."  So  Nolan  was  permitted  to  join  the  circle  one  after 
noon  when  a  lot  of  them  sat  on  deck  smoking  and  reading  aloud.  People 
do  not  do  such  things  so  often  now;  but  when  I  was  young  we  got  rid  of  a 
great  deal  of  time  so.  Well,  so  it  happened  that  in  his  turn  Nolan  took 
the  book  and  read  to  the  others ;  and  he  read  very  well,  as  I  know.  No 
body  in  the  circle  knew  a  line  of  the  poem,  only  it  was  all  magi?  and  border 
chivalry,  and  was  ten  thousand  years  ago.  Poor  Nolan  read  steadily 
through  the  fifth  canto,  stopped  a  minute  and  drank  something,  and  then 
began  without  a  thought  of  what  was  coming: 

"  Breathes  there  the  man,  with  soul  so  dead, 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said  " — 

It  seemed  impossible  to  us  that  any  body  ever  heard  ihis  for  the  first  time; 
but  all  these  fellows  did  then,  and  poor  Nolan  himself  went  on,  still  uncon 
sciously  or  mechanically : 

"  This  is  my  own,  my  native  land !  " 

Then  they  all  saw  something  was  to  pay ;  but  he  expected  to  get  through, 
I  suppose,  turned  a  little  pale,  but  plunged  on : 

"  Whose  heart  hath  ne'er  within  him  burned, 
As  home  his  footsteps  he  hath  turned 

From  wandering  on  a  foreign  strand?— <• 
If  such  there  breathe,  go,  mark  him  well." 

By  this  time  the  men  were  all  beside  themselves,  wishing  there  was  any 
way  to  make  him  turn  over  two  pages ;  but  he  had  not  quite  presence  of 
mind  for  that;  he  gagged  a  little,  colored  crimson,  and  staggered  on: 

"For  him  no  minstrel  raptures  swell; 
High  though  his  titles,  proud  his  name, 
Boundless  his  wealth  as  wish  can  claim, 
Despite  these  titles,  power,  and  pelf, 
The  wretch,  concentered  all  in  self;" — 


268  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

and  here  the  poor  fellow  choked,  could  not  go  on,  but  started  up,  swung 
the  book  into  the  sea,  vanished  into  his  state-room.  "And  by  Jove,"  said 
Phillips,  "  we  did  not  see  him  for  two  months  again.  And  I  had  to  make 
up  some  beggarly  story  to  that  English  surgeon  why  I  did  not  return  his 
Walter  Scott  to  him." 


FITZ-GBEENE    HALLECK. 

LFrom,Jforco  Bozzarts.] 
COME  to  the  bridal-chamber,  Death  I 

Come  to  the  mother's  when  she  feels 
For  the  first  time  her  first-born's  breath; 

Come  when  the  blessed  seals 
That  close  the  pestilence  are  broke, 
And  crowded  cities  wail  its  stroke; 
Come  in  consumption's  ghastly  form, 
The  earthquake  shock,  the  ocean-storm; 
Come  when  the  heart  beats  high  and  warm, 

"With  banquet-song,  and  dance,  arid  wine: 
And  thou  art  terrible — the  tear, 
The  groan,  the  knell,  the  pall,  the  bier ; 
And  all  we  know,  or  dream,  or  fear 

Of  agony,  are  thine. 

But  to  the  hero,  when  his  sword 

Has  won  the  battle  for  the  free, 
Thy  voice  sounds  like  a  prophet's  word  ; 
And  in  its  hollow  tones  are  heard 

The  thanks  of  millions  yet  to  be. 
Come,  when  his  task  of  fame  is  wrought — 
Come,  with  her  laurel-leaf,  blood-bought — 

Come  in  her  crowning  hour — and  then 
Thy  sunken  eye's  unearthly  light 
To  him  is  welcome  as  the  sight 

Of  sky  and  stars  to  prisoned  men; 
Thy  grasp  is  welcome  as  the  hand 
Of  brother  in  a  foreign  land ; 
Thy  summons  welcome  as  the  cry 
That  told  the  Indian  isles  were  nigh 

To  the  world-seeking  Genoese, 
When  the  land-wind,  from  woods  of  palm, 
And  orange-groves,  and  fields  of  balm, 

Blew  o'er  the  Haytian 


HALLKCK.  269 


Bozzaris  1  with  the  storied  brave 

Greece  nurtured  in  her  glory's  time, 
Rest  thee  —  there  is  no  prouder  grave, 

Even  in  her  own  proud  clime. 
She  wore  no  funeral  weeds  for  thee, 

Nor  bade  the  dark  hearse  wave  its  plume, 
Like  torn  branch  from  death's  leafless  tree 
In  sorrow's  pomp  and  pageantry, 

The  heartless  luxury  of  the  tomb; 
But  she  remembers  thee  as  one 
Long  loved,  and  for  a  season  gone; 
For  thee  her  poet's  lyre  is  wreathed, 
Her  marble  wrought,  her  music  breathed; 
For  thee  she  rings  the  birthday  bells; 
Of  thee  her  babes'  first  lisping  tells; 
For  thine  her  evening  prayer  is  said, 
At  palace  couch  and  cottage  bed; 
Her  soldier,  closing  with  the  foe, 
Gives  for  thy  sake  a  deadlier  blow  ; 
His  plighted  maiden,  when  she  fears 
For  him,  the  joy  of  her  young  years, 
Thinks  of  thy  fate  and  checks  her  tears. 

And  she,  the  mother  of  thy  boys, 
Though  in  her  eye  and  faded  cheek 
Is  read  the  grief  she  will  not  speak, 

The  memory  of  her  buried  joys, 
And  even  she  who  gave  thee  birth, 
"Will  by  their  pilgrim-circled  hearth 

Talk  of  thy  doom  without  a  sigh  : 
For  thou  art  Freedom's  now  and  Fame's, 
One  of  the  few,  the  immortal  names, 

That  were  not  born  to  die. 


ON  THE  DEATH  OF  JOSEPH  RODMAN  DHAKE. 

GREEN  be  the  turf  above  thee, 

Friend  of  my  better  days ! 
None  knew  thee  but  to  love  thee, 

Nor  named  thee  but  to  praise. 

Tears  fell,  when  thou  wert  dying, 

From  eyes  unused  to  weep, 
And  long  where  thou  art  lying 

Will  tears  the  cold  turf  steep. 


270  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

When  hearts,  whose  truth  was  proven 
Like  thine,  are  laid  in  earth, 

There  should  a  wreath  be  woven 
To  tell  the  world  their  worth  ; 

And  I,  who  woke  each  morrow 

To  clasp  thy  hand  in  mine, 
.  Who  shared  thy  joy  and  sorrow, 

Whose  weal  and  woe  were  thine— 
It  should  be  mine  to  braid  it 

Around  thy  faded  brow ; 
But  I've  in  vain  essayed  it, 

And  feel  I  cannot  now. 

"While  memory  bids  me  weep  thee, 
Nor  thoughts  nor  words  are  free, 

The  grief  is  fixed  too  deeply 
That  mourns  a  man  like  thee. 


CHARLES     FARRAR    BROWNE. 

[From  Lecture  on  the  Mormons.] 

BROTHER  KIMBALL  is  a  gay  arid  festive  cuss,  of  some  seventy  summers, 
or  some'er's  there  about.  He  has  one  thousand  head  of  cattle  and  a  hun 
dred  head  of  wives.  He  says  they  are  awful  eaters. 

Mr.  Kimball  had  a  son,  a  lovely  young  man,  who  was  married  to  ten 
interesting  wives.  But  one  day  while  he  was  absent  from  home  these  ten 
wives  went  out  walking  with  a  handsome  young  man,  which  so  enraged 
Mr.  Kimball's  son — which  made  Mr.  Kimball's  son  so  jealous — that  he  shot 
himself  with  a  horse-pistol. 

The  doctor  who  attended  him — a  very  scientific  man — informed  me  that 
the  bullet  entered  the  parallelogram  of  his  diaphragmatic  thorax,  superin 
ducing  hemorrhage  in  the  outer  cuticle  of  his  basilicon  thaumaturgist.  It 
killed  him.  I  should  have  thought  it  would. 

(Soft  Music.) 

I  hope  this  sad  end  will  be  a  warning  to  all  young  wives  who  go  out 
walking  with  handsome  young  men.  Mr.  Kimball's  son  is  now  no  more. 
He  sleeps  beneath  the  cypress,  the  myrtle,  and  the  willow.  The  music  is  a 
dirge  by  the  eminent  pianist  for  Mr.  Kimball's  son.  He  died  by  request. 


CHARLES  FARRAR  BROWNE.  271 

I  regret  to  say  that  efforts  were  made  to  make  a  Mormon  of  me  while  I 
was  in  Utah. 

It  was  leap-year  when  J  was  there,  and  seventeen  young  widows,  the 
wives  of  a  deceased  Mormon,  offered  me  their  hearts  and  hands.  I  called 
on  them  one  day,  arid,  taking  their  soft  white  hands  in  mine,  which  made 
eighteen  hands  altogether,  I  found  them  in  tears,  and  I  said,  "Why  is  this 
thus?  What  is  the  reason  of  this  thusness  ?  " 

They  hove  a  sigh — seventeen  sighs  of  different  size.     They  said: 

"  0,  soon  thou  wilt  be  gonested  away  !  " 

I  told  them  that  when  T  got  ready  to  leave  a  place  I  wentested. 

They  said.  "  Doth  not  like  us?" 

I  said,  "  I  doth— I  doth." 

I  also  said,  "  I  hope  your  intentions  are  honorable,  as  I  am  a  lone  child, 
my  parents  being  far — far  away." 

Then  they  said,  "  Wilt  not  marry  us  ?  " 

I  said,  "  0,  no,  it  cannot  was  1  " 

Again  they  asked  me  to  marry  them,  and  again  I  declined,  when  they 
cried, 

"  0,  cruel  man  !  this  is  too  much !     0,  too  much ! " 

I  told  them  that  it  was  on  account  of  the  muchness  that  I  declined.  .  . . 

(Pointing  to  Panorama.} 

A  more  cheerful  view  of  the  desert. 

The  wild  snow-storms  have  left  us  and  we  have  thrown  our  wolf-skin 
overcoats  aside.  Certain  tribes  of  far-western  Indians  bury  their  distin 
guished  dead  by  placing  them  high  in  air  and  covering  them  with  valuable 
furs.  That  is  a  very  fair  representation  of  those  mid-air  tombs.  Those 
animals  are  horses.  I  know  they  are,  because  my  artist  says  so.  I  had 
the  picture  two  years  before  I  discovered  the  fact.  The  artist  came  to  me 
about  six  months  ago  and  said,  "  It  is  useless  to  disguise  it  from  you  any 
longer,  they  are  horses." 

It  was  while  crossing  this  desert  that  I  was  surrounded  by  a  band  of  Ute 
Indians.  They  were  splendidly  mounted.  They  were  dressed  in  beaver- 
skins,  and  they  were  armed  with  rifles,  knives,  and  pistols. 

What  could  I  do?  What  could  a  poor  old  orphan  do?  I'm  a  brave 
man.  The  day  before  the  battle  of  Bull's  Run  I  stood  in  the  highway  while 
the  bullets — those  dreadful  messengers  of  death — were  passing  all  around 
me  thickly — in  wagons — on  their  way  to  the  battle-field.  But  there  were 
too  many  of  these  Injuns.  There  were  forty  of  them,  and  only  one  of  me, 
and  so  I  said  : 

"Great  chief,  I  surrender." 


272  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

His  name  was  Wocky-bocky.  Ho  dismounted  and  approached  me.  I 
saw  his  tomahawk  glisten  in  the  morning  sunlight.  Fire  was  in  his  eye. 
Wocky-bocky  came  very  close 

(Pointing  to  Panorama) 

to  me  and  seized  me  by  the  hair  of  my  head.  He  mingled  his  swarthy 
fingers  with  my  golden  tresses,  and  he  rubbed  his  dreadful  tomahawk  across 
my  lily-white  face.  He  said: 

"  Torsha  arrali  darrah  mishky  bookshean  1 " 

I  told  him  he  was  right. 

Wocky-bocky  again  rubbed  his  tomahawk  across  my  face,  and  said: 

"  Wink-ho-loo-boo  1 " 

Says  I,  ilMr.  Wocky-bocky,"  says  I,  "Wocky,  I  have  thought  so  for 
years,  and  so's  all  our  family." 

He  told  me  I  must  go  to  the  tent  of  the  Strong  Heart  and  eat  raw  dog. 
It  don't  agree  with  me.  I  prefer  simple  food.  I  prefer  pork-pie,  because 
then  I  know  what  I'm  eating.  But  as  raw  dog  was  all  they  proposed  to 
give  to  mo  I  had  to  eat  it  or  starve.  So  at  the  expiration  of  two  days  I 
seized  a  tin  plate  and  went  to  the  chief's  daughter,  and  I  said  to  her  in  a 
silvery  voice — in  a  kind  of  German-silvery  voice — I  said: 

"  Sweet  child  of  the  forest,  the  pale-face  wants  his  dog." 

There  was  nothing  but  his  paws.  I  had  paused  too  long — which  reminds 
me  that  time  passes — a  way  which  time  has.  I  was  told  in  my  youth  to 
seize  opportunit}'".  I  once  tried  to  seize  one.  He  was  rich ;  he  had  dia 
monds  on.  As  I  seized  him  he  knocked  me  down.  Since  then  I  have 
learned  that  he  who  seizes  opportunity  sees  the  penitentiary. 


SAMUEL  LANGHORNE  CLEMENS. 
THE  JUMPING  FROG  OF  CALAVERAS  COUNTY. 

"  WELL,  there  was  a  feller  here  once  by  the  name  of  Jim  Smiley  in  the  win 
ter  of  '49,  or  maybe  it  was  the  spring  of  '50—1  don't  recollect  exactly,  some 
how,  though  what  makes  me  think  it  was  one  or  the  other  is  because  I 
remember  the  big  flume  warn't  finished  when  he  first  come  to  the  camp. 
But  any  way,  he  was  the  cnriousest  man  about,  always  betting  on  anything 
that  turned  up  you  ever  see,  if  he  could  get  any  body  to  bet  on  the  other 
side;  and  if  he  couldn't  he'd  change  sides.  Any  way  that  suited  the  other 
side  would  suit  him — any  way  just  so's  he  got  a  bet  he  was  satisfied.  But 


SAMUEL  LANGHORNK  CLEMENS.        273 

still  he  was  lucky,  uncommon  lucky;  he  most  always  came  out  winner. 
He  was  always  ready  and  laying  for  a  chance.  There  couldn't  be  no  solit'ry 
tiling  mentioned  but  that  feller'd  offer  to  bet  on  it  and  take  any  side  you 
please,  as  I  was  just  telling  you.  If  there  was  a  horse-race  you'd  find  him 
flush  or  you'd  find  him  busted  at  the  end  of  it.  If  there  was  a  dog-fight, 
he'd  bet  on  it;  if  there  was  a  cat-fight,  he'd  bet  on  it;  if  there  was  a 
chicken-fight,  he'd  bet  on  it.  Why,  if  there  was  two  birds  setting  on  a 
fence,  he  would  bet  you  which  one  would  fly  first.  Or  if  there  was  a 
camp-meeting,  he  would  be  there  reg'lar  to  bet  on  Parson  "Walker,  which  he 
judged  to  be  the  best  exhorter  about  here,  and  so  he  was,  too,  and  a  good 
man.  If  he  even  see  a  straddle-bug  start  to  go  anywheres  he  would  bet 
you  how  long  it  would  take  him  to  get  to — to  wherever  he  was  going  to ; 
and  if  you  took  him  up  he  would  follow  that  straddle-bug  to  Mexico  but 
what  he  would  find  out  where  he  was  bound  for  and  how  long  he  was 
on  the  road.  Lots  of  the  boys  here  has  seen  that  Smiley,  and  can  tell  you 
about  him.  "Why,  it  never  made  no  difference  to  him,  he'd  bet  any  thing 
— the  dangdest  feller.  Parson  "Walker's  wife  laid  very  sick  once  for  a  good 
while,  and  it  seemed  as  if  they  warn't  going  to  save  her;  but  one  morning 
he  come  in  and  Smiley  up  and  asked  him  how  she  was,  and  he  said  she  was 
consid'able  better — thank  the  Lord  for  his  inf'nit  rnercy  1 — and  coming  on 
so  smart  that,  with  the  blessing  of  Providence,  she'd  get  well  yet;  and 
Smiley,  before  he  thought,  says,  4Well,  I'll  resk  two-and-a-half  she  don't, 
any  way.' 


"  "Well,  this  yer  Smiley  had  rat-terriers,  and  chicken-cocks,  and  tom-cats, 
and  all  them  kind  of  things  till  you  couldn't  rest,  and  you  couldn't  fetch  noth 
ing  for  him  to  bet  on  but  he'd  match  you.  He  ketched  a  frog  one  day  and 
took  him  home,  and  said  he  cal'lated  to  educate  him ;  and  so  he  never  done 
nothing  for  three  months  but  set  in  his  back-yard  and  learn  that  frog  to 
jump.  And  you  bet  you  he  did  learn  him,  too.  He'd  give  him  a  little 
punch  behind,  and  the  next  minute  you'd  see  that  frog  whirling  in  the  air 
like  a  doughnut — see  him  turn  one  summerset,  or  may  be  a  couple,  if  he  got 
a  good  start,  and  come  down  flat-footed  and  all  right,  like  a  cat.  He  got 
him  up  so  in  the  matter  of  ketching  flies,  and  kep'  him  in  practice  so  con 
stant,  that  he'd  nail  a  fly  every  time  as  fur  as  he  could  see  him.  Smiley  said 
all  a  frog  wanted  was  education  and  he  could  do  'most  any  thing,  and  I  be 
lieve  him.  Why,  I've  seen  him  set  Dan'l  Webster  down  here  on  this  floor 
— Dan'l  Webster  was  the  name  of  the  frog — and  sing  out,  '  Flies,  Dan'l, 
flies  I '  and  quicker'n  you  could  wink  he'd  spring  straight  up  and  snake  a  fly 
off 'n  the  counter  there  and  flop  down  on  the  floor  ag'in  as  solid  as  a  gob  of 
18 


274  INITIAL  STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  LETTERS. 

rnud,  and  fall  to  scratching  the  side  of  his  head  with  his  hind  foot  as  indif 
ferent  as  if  he  hadn't  no  idea  he'd  been  doin'  any  more'n  any  frog  might  do. 
You  never  see  a  frog  so  modest  and  straightfor'ard  as  he  was,  for  all  he 
was  so  gifted.  And  when  it  come  to  fair  and  square  jumping  on  a  dead 
level  he  could  get  over  more  ground  at  one  straddle  than  any  animal  of  his 
breed  you  ever  see.  Jumping  on  a  dead  level  was  his  strong  suit,  you  un 
derstand;  and  when  it  come  to  that,  Smiley  would  ante  up  money  on  him 
as  long  as  he  had  a  red.  Smiley  was  monstrous  proud  of  his  frog,  and  well 
he  might  be,  for  fellers  that  had  traveled  and  been  every-wheres  all  said  he 
laid  over  any  frog  that  ever  they  see. 

""Well,  Smiley  kep'  the  beast  in  a  little  lattice-box,  and  he  used  to  fetch 
him  down-town  sometimes  and  lay  for  a  bet.  One  day  a  feller — a  stranger 
in  the  camp  he  was — come  acrost  him  with  his  box  and  says: 

" '  What  might  it  be  that  you've  got  in  the  box  ?  ' 

"  And  Smiley  says,  sorter  indifferent  like,  '  It  might  be  a  parrot,  or  it 
might  be  a  canary,  may  be,  but  it  ain't — it's  only  just  a  frog.' 

"And  the  feller  took  it,  and  looked  at  it  careful,  and  turned  it  round 
this  way  and  that,  and  says,  '  H'm — so  'tis.  Well,  what's  he  good  for?  ' 

"  '  Well,'  Smiley  says,  easy  and  careless,  'he's  good  enough  for  one  thing, 
I  should  judge — he  can  outjump  any  frog  in  Calaveras  County.' 

"  The  feller  took  the  box  again  and  took  another  long,  particular  look  and 
give  it  back  to  Smiley,  and  says,  very  deliberate :  '  Well,'  he  says,  '  I  don't 
see  no  p'ints  about  that  frog  that's  any  better'n  any  other  frog.' 

"  '  May  be  you  don't,'  Smiley  says.  '  May  be  you  understand  frogs,  and 
may  be  you  don't  understand  'em;  may  be  you've  had  experience,  and 
may  be  you  aint  only  a  amature,  as  it  were.  Anyways,  I've  got  my 
opinion,  and  I'll  resk  forty  dollars  that  he  can  outjump  any  frog  in  Calaveras 
County.' 

"And  the  feller  studied  a  minute,  and  then  says,  kinder  sad  like, 

"  '  Well,  I'm  only  a  stranger  here,  and  I  aint  got  no  frog ;  but  if  I  had  a 
frog  I'd  bet  you  I ' 

*'And  then  Smiley  says,  'That's  all  right — that's  all  right;  if  you'll  hold 
my  box  a  minute  I'll  go  and  get  you  a  frog.'  And  so  the  feller  took  the 
box,  and  put  up  his  forty  dollars  along  with  Smiley's,  and  set  down  to 
wait. 

"  So  he  set  there  a  good  while,  thinking  and  thinking  to  hisself.  and  then 
he  got  the  frog  out  and  pried  his  mouth  open,  and  took  a  teaspoon  and  filled 
him  full  of  quail-shot — filled  him  pretty  near  up  to  his  chin — and  set  him 
on  the  floor.  Smiley,  he  went  to  the  swamp  and  slopped  around  in  the 
mud  for  a  long  time,  and  finally  he  ketched  a  frog,  and  fetched  him  in,  and 
give  him  to  this  feller,  and  says,  " '  Now,  if  you're  ready,  set  him  along- 


SAMUEL  LANGHORNE  CLEMENS.        275 

side  of  Dan'l,  with  his  forepaws  just  even  with  Dan'l,  and  I'll  give  the 
word.' .  Then  he  says,  '  One— two — three — git! '  and  him  and  the  feller 
touched  up  the  frogs  from  behind,  and  the  new  frog  hopped  off  lively,  but 
Dan'l  give  a  heave,  and  hysted  up  his  shoulders — so— like  a  Frenchman, 
but  it  warn't  no  use — he  couldn't  budge;  he  was  planted  as  solid  as  a 
church,  and  wouldn't  no  more  stir  than  if  he  was  anchored  out.  Smiley 
was  a  good  deal  surprised,  and  he  was  disgusted  too,  but  he  didn't  have  no 
idea  what  the  matter  was,  of  course. 

"  The  feller  took  the  money  and  started  away  ;  but  when  he  was  going 
out  at  the  door  he  sorter  jerked  his  thumb  over  his  shoulder — so— at  Dan'l, 
and  says  again,  very  deliberate,  '  Well,'  he  says,  '  I  don't  see  no  p'iuts  about 
that  frog  that's  any  better'n  any  other  frog.' 

"Smiley,  he  stood  scratching  his  head  and  looking  down  at  Dau'l  a  long 
time,  and  at  last  he  says,  '  I  do  wonder  what  in  the  nation  that  frog  throwed 
off  for.  I  wonder  if  there  aint  something  the 'matter  with  him — he  'pears 
to  look  mighty  baggy,  somehow.'  And  he  ketched  Dan'l  by  the  nap  of  the 
neck,  and  hefted  him,  and  says,  '  Why,  blame  my  cats  if  he  don't  weigh 
five  pound  I '  and  turned  him  upside  down,  and  he  belched  out  a  double 
handful  of  shot.  And  then  he  see  how  it  was,  and  he  was  the  maddest 
man.  He  set  the  frog  down  and  took  out  after  the  feller,  but  he  never 
kotchcd  him." 


INDEX. 


An  Index  to  the  American  Authors  and  Writings  and  the  Principal  American 
Periodicals  mentioned  in  this  Volume. 


Abraham  Lincoln,  143. 

Adams  and  Liberty,  60. 

Adams,  John,  49. 

Adams,  J.  Q.,  72,  85. 

Adams,  Samuel,  43,  44. 

After-Dinner  Poem,  135. 

After  the  Funeral,  142. 

Age  of  Reason,  The,  51-53,  60. 

Ages,  The,  153. 

Alcott,  A.  B.,  93,  104. 

Aldrich,  T.  B.,  170,  197. 

Algerine  Captive,  The,  63. 

Algic  Researches,  130. 

Alhambra,  The,  74. 

All  Quiet  Along  the  Potomac,  184. 

Alnwick  Castle,  81. 

Alsop,  Richard,  55,  56. 

American,  The,  206. 

American  Civil  War,  The,  182. 

American  Conflict,  The,  182. 

American  Flag,  The,  80. 

American  Note-Books,  95,  114,  116,  119, 

128. 

American  Scholar,  The,  93, 104, 123. 
Ames,  Fisher,  50,  51. 
Among  My  Books,  143. 
Anabel  Lee,  165. 
Anarchiad,  The,  55. 
Army  Life  in  a  Black  Regiment,  186. 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  The,  183. 
Art  of  Book-Making,  The,  77. 
"  Artemus  Ward,"  188, 189-193, 194. 
Arthur  Mervyn,  63,  65. 
At  Teague  Poteet's,  203. 
Atlantic  Monthly,  The,  136,  143,  150,  151, 

185,  186,  195,  197,  208. 
Atlantis,  169. 
Auf  Wiedersehen,  142. 
Autobiography,  Franklin's,  28,  38,  39,  40, 

73. 
Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,  The,  132, 

136,  137. 
Autumn,  125. 


Backwoodsman,  The,  72. 

Ballad  of  the  Oysterman,  133. 

Ballads  and  Other  Poems,  126. 

Bancroft,  George,  123,  138,  145, 146. 

Barbara  Frietchie,  158. 

Barlow,  Joel,  51,  52,  55-58. 

Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,  183. 

Battle  of  the  Kegs,  59. 

Battlefield,  The,  154. 

Bay  Fight,  The,  184. 

Bay  Psalm  Book,  The,  21. 

Bedouin  Song,  172. 

Beecher,  H.  W.,  175,  176. 

Beecher,  Lyman,  98, 175. 

Beers,  Mrs.  E.  L.,  184. 

Beleaguered  City,  The,  126, 129. 

Belfry  of  Bruges,  The,  126, 127. 

Beverly,  Robert,  17. 

Biglow  Papers,  The,  139-142, 159,  188. 

"  Bill  Nye,"  193. 

Black  Cat,  The,  166. 

Black  Fox  of  Salmon  River,  The,  157. 

Blair,  James,  14. 

Blithedale  Romance,  The,  95, 118, 172,  209. 

Bloody  Tenent  of  Persecution,  The,  22,  23. 

Blue  and  the  Gray,  The,  184. 

Boker,  G.  H.,  197: 

Bostonians,  The,  209. 

Boys,  The,  134. 

Bracebridge  Hall,  75,  76, 187. 

Bradford's  Journal,  21,  24,  25,  31,  33. 

Brahma,  105,  109. 

Brainard,  J.  G.  C.,  156, 157,  175. 

Brick  Moon,  The,  196. 

Bridal  of  Pennacook,  The,  157, 159. 

Bridge,  The,  129. 

Broken  Heart,  The,  77. 

Brown,  C.  B.,  63-65. 

Browne,  C.  F.    (See  "  Artemus  Ward.'1) 

Brownell,  H.  H.,  184,  185. 

Bryant,  W.  C.,  68,  80, 124, 125, 133,  151-155, 

162,  169. 
Buccaneer,  The,  89. 


INDEX. 


277 


Building  of  the  Ship,  The,  127. 
Bundle  of  Letters,  A,  206. 
Burnett,  Mrs.  F.  H.,  205. 
Bushnell,  Horace,  99. 
Busy-Body,  The,  38,  53,  74. 
Butler,  W.  A.,  170. 
Byrd,  Wm.,  10, 17. 

Cable,  G.  W.,  203. 

Calhoun,  J.  C.,  46,  86. 

Cambridge  Thirty  Years  Ago,  1:33. 

Cape  Cod, 111. 

Capture  of  Fugitive  Slaves,  140. 

Cary,  Alice,  173. 

Cary,  Phoebe,  173. 

Cask  of  Amontillado,  The,  166. 

Cassandra  Southwick,  159. 

Cathedral,  The,  144. 

Cecil  Dreeme,  185. 

Century  Magazine,  The,  150, 183, 197. 

Chambered  Nautilus,  The,  135. 

Chance  Acquaintance,  A,  208. 

Charming,  W.  E.,  73,  90-92,  03,97-100, 106. 

Channing,  W.  E.,  Jr.,  100,  110, 119. 

Channing,  W.  H.,  106. 

Chapel  of  the  Hermits,  The,  158. 

Character  of  Milton,  The,  91. 

Charleston,  184. 

Children  of  Adam,  177. 

Choate,  Rufus,  89,  90. 

Christian  Examiner,  The,  91. 

Circular  Letters,  by  Otis  and  Quincy,  44. 

City  in  the  Sea,  The,  162. 

Clara  Howard,  63. 

Clari,  84. 

Clarke,  J.  F.,  105, 106. 

Clay,  Henry,  86. 

Clemens,  S.  L.    (See  "  Mark  Twain.") 

Columbiad,  The,  56, 57. 

Common  Sense,  51. 

Companions  of  Columbus,  74. 

Condensed  Novels,  200. 

Conduct  of  Life,  The,  107. 

Confederate  States  of  America,  The,  182. 

Conquest  of  Canaan,  57. 

Conquest  of  Granada,  73,  74,  78. 

Conquest  of  Mexico,  _145. 

Conquest  of  Peru,  145. 

Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,  The,  147. 

Constitution  and  the  Union,  The,  87. 

Constitution  of  the  United  States,  The,  45, 

85. 

Contentment,  85. 
Contrast,  The,  63. 
Conversations  on  the  Gospels,  104. 
Conversations  on  Some  of  the  Old  Poets, 

143. 

Cooke,  J.  E.,  169. 
Cooper,  J.  F.,  61,  71,  73,  81-84,  89,  107,  130 

147,  168,  204. 
Coral  Grove,  The,  175. 
Cotton,  John,  22,  23,  28,  29. 
Count  Frontenac  and  New  France,  14*. 
Courtin',  The,  141, 188. 
Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,  The,  2«. 
Cow  Chase,  The,  59. 


ranch,  C.  P.,  95, 106. 

rime  against  Kansas,  The,  149 

risis,  The,  51. 

roaker  Papers,  The,  81. 
Culprit  Fay,  The,  80. 
Jurtis,  G.  W.,  95,  197. 

Daisy  Miller,  206. 
Dana,  C.  A.,  95,  106, 151. 
)ana,  R.  H.,  68,  89. 
Janbury  News  Man,  59, 189. 
)ante,  Longfellow's,  131.     . 
Javis,  Jefferson,  182. 
Day  is  Done,  The,  128. 
Day  of  Doom,  The,  34. 
Death  of  the  Flowers,  The,  153, 154. 
Declaration  of  Independence,  The,  45,  59, 

85. 

Deerslayer,  The,  83,  84. 
Democratic  Vistas,  180. 
Derby,  G.  H.,  190. 
Descent  into  the  Maelstrom,  166. 
)eserted  Road,  The,  173. 
Dial,  The,  93,  98,  105,  106. 
Dialogue  Between  Franklin  and  the  Gout, 

39. 

Diamond  Lens,  The,  186. 
Discourse  of  the  Plantation  of  Virginia,  A, 

12. 

Dolph  Heyliger,  75. 
Domain  of  Arnhelm,  The,  166. 
Dorchester  Giant,  The,  132. 
Drake,  J.  R.,  80,  81,  89. 
Draper,  J.  W.,  182. 
Dream  Life,  175. 
Drifting,  173. 

Driving  Home  the  Cows,  184. 
Drum  Taps,  180. 
Dutchman's  Fireside,  The,  79. 
Dwight,  J.  S.,  95,  100, 106. 
Dwight,  Theodore,  55,  56. 
Dwight,  Timothy,  55,  57,  58. 

Early  Spring  in  Massachusetts,  111. 

Echo,  The,  56. 

Echo  Club,  The,  172. 

Edgar  Huntley,  63,  65. 

Edith  Linsev,  170. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  35-37,  58,  91,  97,  99. 

Eggleston,  Edward,  2C2. 

Elevator,  The,  63,  210. 

Eliot,  John,  21,  23. 

Elsie  Venner,  137. 

Emerson,  Charles,  106. 

Emerson]  R.  W.,  88, 93, 96-113, 119, 122, 123, 

128,  129,  138,  151,  154,  1(50,  179. 
Endicott's  Red  Cross,  25, 118. 
English  Note-Books,  119. 
English  Traits,  103, 109. 
Ephemera?,  176. 
Epilogue  to  Cato,  CO. 
Eternal  Goodness,  158. 
Ethan  Brand,  117. 
Europeans,  The,  206.  207. 
Evangeline,  129,  130. 
Evening  Wind,  The,  153. 


278 


INDEX. 


Everett,  Edward,  89,  90, 138, 138, 189. 

Excelsior,  127. 

Excursions,  111. 

Expediency  of  the  Federal  Constitution, 

48. 
Eyes  and  Ears,  176. 

F.  Smith,  170. 

Fable  for  Critics,  A,  105, 142, 144. 

Facts  in  the  case  of  M.  Valdemar,  The,  164. 

Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  The,  166. 

Familists'  Hymn,  The,  25. 

Fanshawe,  116. 

Farewell  Address,  Washington's,  49. 

Faust,  Taylor's,  172. 

Federalist,  The,  48, 49. 

Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  123, 145. 

Final  Judgment,  The,  35. 

Finch,  F.  M.,  184.  / 

Fire  of  Driftwood,  The,  128. 

Fireside  Travels,  123. 

Fitz  Adam's  Story,  141. 

Flint,  Timothy,  72. 

Flood  of  Years,  The,  155. 

Footpath,  The,  142. 

Footsteps  of  Angels,  126. 

Foregone  Conclusion,  A,  207. 

Forest  Hymn,  152. 

Fortune  of  the  Republic,  107. 

Foster,  S.  C.,  173,  174. 

France  and  England  in  North  America, 

147. 

Franklin,  Ben.,  28,  37,  40,  52,  53,  73,  74. 
Freedom  of  the  Will,  35. 
French  Poets  and  Novelists,  205. 
Freueau,  Philip,  60-62. 
Fuller,  Margaret,  93,  95,  99,  100, 105,  108, 

109, 119, 131. 

Galaxy  Magazine,  The,  197. 

Garrison,  W.  L.,  26,  87,  147,  156,  157,  174. 

Garrison  of  Cape  Ann,  The,  32. 

Geography  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  72. 

Georgia  Spec,  The,  63. 

Ghost  Ball  at  Congress  Hall,  The,  170. 

(Jive  Me  the  Old,  170. 

Godey's  Lady's  Book,  150,  160. 

Godfrey,  Thomas,  63. 

Gold  Bug,  The,  163. 

Golden  Legend,  The,  130. 

(iood  News  from  Virginia,  18. 

Good  Word  for  Winter,  A,  143. 

Goodrich,  S.  G.,  69,  72,  116. 

Graham's  Magazine,  150, 160,  1C2, 164, 171. 

Grandfather's  Chair,  32. 

Grandissimes,  The,  203. 

Greeley,  Horace,  95, 171, 182. 

Green  River,  153. 

Greene,  A.  G.,  85. 

Greenfield  Hill,  58. 

Guardian  Angel,  The,  137, 138. 

Hail,  Columbia !  59,  60,  80. 
Hale,  E.  E.,  122,  164,  195,  196. 
Halleck,  F.  G.,  80,81,  89,  109. 
Halpine,  C.  G.,  186. 


Hamilton,  Alexander,  48,  49,  51,  87. 

Hannah  Thurston,  172. 

Hans  Breitmann  Ballads,  202. 

Hans  Pfaall,  163. 

Harbinger,  The,  94,  95. 

Harper's  Monthly  Magazine,  150, 151,  197. 

Harris,  J.  C.,  202. 

Harte,  F.  B.,  193,  198-202. 

Hasty  Pudding,  57. 

Haunted  Palace,  The,  165. 

Hawthorne,  Julian,  ll8. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  9,  18,  25,  32,  56,  6S, 
93,  95,  105,  106,  108,  114-120,  124,  128, 
129,  137,  138,  150,  160,  166,  172, 182,  1H5, 
187,  188,  204,  205,  209. 

Hay,  John,  201,  202. 

Health,  A,  85. 

Heathen  Chinee,  The,  200. 

Hedge,  F.  H.,  95. 

Height  of  the  Ridiculous,  The,  132. 

Henry,  Patrick,  43,  44,  48. 

Hiawatha,  61,  130. 

Higginson,  T.  W.,  75,  95, 105, 186. 

His  Level  Best,  195. 

History  of  New  England,  Winthrop's,  24- 

History  of  Plymouth  Plantation,  Brad 
ford's,  24,  25. 

History  of  the  Dividing  Line,  16, 17. 

History  of  the  United  Netherlands,  146. 

History  of  the  United  States,  Bancroft's, 
123, 146  ;  Higginson's,  75. 

History  of  Virginia,  Beverly's,  17 ;  Smith's, 
15;  Stith's,  17. 

Hoffman,  C.  F.,  170. 

Holland,  J.  G.,  197. 

Holmes,  O.  W.,  29,  85,  93,  94,  122,  123,  131- 
138,  141,  151,  153,  160,  183,  186,  187, 188. 

Home,  Sweet  Home,  84. 

Homesick  in  Heaven,  135. 

Hooker,  Thomas,  28,  30,  31,  99. 

Hoosier  Schoolmaster,  The,  202. 

Hopkins,  Lemuel,  55. 

Hopkinson,  Francis,  59. 

Hopkinson,  Joseph,  59. 

Horse-Shoe  Robinson,  168. 

House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  The,  115,  118. 

Howe,  Mrs.  J.  W.,  183. 

Howells,  W.  D.,  63,  203  -205,  207-210. 

Humphreys,  David,  55,  56. 

Hymn  at  the  Completion  of  Concord  Mon 
ument,  110. 

Hymn  of  the  Moravian  Nuns,  125. 

Hymn  to  the  Night,  126. 

Hymn  to  the  North  Star,  152. 

Hyperion,  131. 

Icbabod,  158. 

If,  Yes,  and  Perhaps,  195. 

Iliad,  Bryant's,  155. 

Illustrious  Providences,  29. 

In  the  Tennessee  Mountains,  203. 

In  the  Twilight,  142. 

In  War  Time,  157. 

Independent,  The,  176. 

Indian  Bible,  Eliot's,  21. 


INDEX. 


279 


Indian  Burying-Ground,  The,  61. 
Indian  Student,  The,  61. 
Indian  Summer,  208,  209. 
Ingbam  Papers,  195. 
Inklings  of  Adventure,  169. 
Innocents  Abroad,  193,  194. 
International  Episode,  An,  206,  207. 
Irving,  Washington,  42,  53,  68,  71,  73-82, 

89,  117,  138,  187,  188,  194,  206. 
Israfel,  162. 
Italian  Journeys,  208. 
Italian  Note-Books,  119. 

James,  Henry,  185,  203-210. 

Jane  Talbot,  63. 

Jay,  John,  48,  49. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  14,  45-48,  50,  52,  61. 

Jesuits  in  North  America,  The,  147. 

Jirn,  201. 

Jim  Bludso,  201. 

John  Brown's  Body,  59,  183. 

John  Godfrey's  Fortune,  172. 

"  John  Phoenix,"  190. 

John  Underbill,  25. 

Jonathan  to  John,  141. 

"  Josh  Billings,"  193. 

Journey  to  the  Land  of  Eden,  A,  17. 

Judd,  Sylvester,  144. 

Jumping  Frog,  The,  193. 

June,  153,  154. 

Justice  and  Expediency,  157. 

Kansas  and  Nebraska  Bill,  The,  149. 

Katie,  184. 

Kennedy,  J.  P.,  168. 

Key  into  the  Language  of  America,  A,  23. 

Key,  F.  S.,  60. 

Kidd,  the  Pirate,  75. 

King's  Missive,  The,  159. 

Knickerbocker  Magazine,  The,  75,  79,  116, 

147,  160. 
Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York,  68, 

73,  75,  76,  187. 

Lady  of  the  Aroostook,  The,  207,  209. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  202. 

La  Salle  and  the  Discovery  of  the  (treat 

West,  147. 

Last  Leaf,  The,  85,  133. 
Last  of  the  Mohicans,  The,  83,  84. 
Last  of  the  Valerii,  The,  205. 
Latest  Form  of  Infidelity,  The,  99. 
Laus  Deo,  158. 

Leatherstocking  Tales.  61,  83,  84. 
Leaves  of  Grass,  176,  177,  179. 
Lecture  on  the  Mormons,  190-192. 
Legend  of  Brittany,  138. 
Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  75,  77. 
Legends  of  New  England,  156,  157. 
Legends  of  the  Province  House,  118. 
Leland,  C.  G.,  202. 
Letter  on  Whitewashing,  59. 
Letters  and  Social  Aims,  107. 
Letters  from  Under  a  Bridge,  169,  170. 
Letters  of  a  Traveler,  155. 
Liberator,  The,  86, 147, 174. 


Life  of  Columbus,  Irving's,  74,  78. 

Life  of  Goldsmith,  7U. 

Life  of  John  of  Barneveld,  146. 

Life  of  Washington,  Irving's,  78. 

Ligeia,  165. 

Light  of  Stars,  The,  126. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  51,  las,  180,  186,  189. 

Lines  on  Leaving  Europe,  170. 

Lippincott's  Magazine,  197. 

Literary  Recreations,  160. 

Literati  of  New  York,  160. 

Little  Breeches,  201. 

Livingston,  William,  53. 

Locke,  David  R.,  193. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  18,  25,  26,  61,  115,  116, 

123-131,  ia3,  138,  139,  141,  142,  151,  159, 

160,  162,  167,  172,  179,  197. 
Lost  Arts,  148. 
Lost  Cause,  The,  183. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  12,  93,  96,  104, 105,  107,  122, 

123,  138-144,  151,  154,  159,  160,  172, 174, 

183,  187,  188,  197. 
Luck  of  Roaring  Camp,  The,  199. 
Lunatic's  Skate,  The,  170. 
Lyrics  of  a  Day,  184. 

MacFingal,  54,  55,  59,  73. 

Madison,  James,  48,  49,  61. 

Madonna  of  the  Future,  The,  205. 

Magnalia  Christi  Americana,  19,  28-34, 73. 

Mahomet  and  his  Successors,  78. 

Maine  Woods,  The,  111. 

"  Major  Jack  Downing,"  189. 

Man  of  the  Crowd,  The,  166. 

Man-of-War  Bird,  The,  179. 

Man  Without  a  Country,  The,  154, 195. 

Marble  Faun,  The,  115,  117,  118, 119. 

Marco  Bozzaris,  81. 

Margaret,  144. 

"Mark  Twain,"  188, 189, 193, 194. 

Maryland,  My  Maryland,  183. 

Masque  of  the  Gods,  The,  171. 

Masque  of  the  Red  Death,  166. 

Mather,  Cotton,  19,  20,  21,  23,  26,  28-34,  36, 

73. 

Mather,  Increase,  29,  31. 
Maud  Muller,  158. 
May-Day,  107. 

Maypole  of  Merrymount,  The,  25. 
Memoranda  of  the  Civil  War,  180. 
Memorial  History  of  Boston,  159. 
Men  Naturally  God's  Enemies,  35. 
Merry  Mount,  145. 
Messenger,  R.  H.,  170. 
Miggles,  200. 
"Miles  O'Reilly,"  186. 
Minister's  Black  Veil,  The,  117. 
Minister's  Wooing,  The,  175. 
Mitchell,  D.  G.,  175. 
Mocking  Bird,  The,  202. 
Modern  Instance,  A,  208, 209. 
Modern  Learning,  59. 
Modest  Request,  A,  134. 
Money  Diggers,  The,  75. 
Moutcalm  and  Wolfe,  147. 
Monterey,  170. 


280 


INDEX. 


Moore,  C.  C.,  170. 

Moore,  Frank,  183. 

Moral  Argument  Against  Calvinism,  The, 

90. 

Morris,  G.  P.,  170. 
Morton's  Hope,  145. 
Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  114, 117. 
Motley,  J.  L  ,  122,  138,  145,  146. 
Mount  Vernon,  56. 
"  Mrs.  Partiugton,"  189. 
MS.  Found  in  a  Bottle,  168. 
Murder  of  Lovejoy,  The,  123. 
Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue,  The,  163. 
Murfree,  Mary  N.,  203. 
Music-Grinders,  The,  133. 
My  Aunt,  133. 
My  Captain,  180. 

My  Double  and  How  He  Undid  Me,  196. 
My  Garden  Acquaintance,  143. 
My  Life  is  Like  the  Summer  Rose,  85. 
My  Old  Kentucky  Home,  173. 
My  Search  for  the  Captain,  186. 
My  Study  Windows,  143. 
My  Wife  and  I,  175. 
Mystery  of  Gilgal,  The,  201. 
Mystery  of  Marie  Roget,  The,  163. 

Narrative  of  A.  Gordon  Pym,  The,  166. 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and  His  Wife,  118. 

Nature,  93, 101, 103,  107. 

Naval  History  of  the  United  States,  81. 

Nearer  Home,  173. 

Negro  Melodies,  173.  - ..    • 

Nelly  was  a  Lady,  173. 

New  England  Tragedies,  25. 

New  England  Two  Centuries  Ago,  141, 143. 

New  System  of  English  Grammar,  A,  190. 

New  York  Evening  Post,  The,  152, 155. 

New  York  Tribune,  The,  95, 171. 

Newell,  R.  H.,  193. 

North  American  Review,  The,  89, 116, 124, 

143,  151,  152. 
Norton,  Andrews,  99. 
Notes  on  Virginia,  47. 
Nothing  to  Wear,  170. 
Nux  Postcoenatica,  134. 

O,  Susanna,  173. 

O'Brien,  F.  J.,  185. 

Observations  on  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  44. 

Occupation  of  Orion,  The,  127, 139. 

Ode  at  the  Harvard  Commemoration,  142. 

Ode  for  a  Social  Meeting,  134. 

Ode  to  Freedom,  140. 

Odyssey,  Bryant's,  155. 

Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,  The,  127. 

Old  Creole  Days,  203. 

Old  Folks  at  Home,  173. 

Old  Grimes,  85. 

Old  Ironsides,  132. 

Old  Oaken  Bucket,  The,  84. 

Old  Pennsylvania  Farmer,  The,  171. 

Old  Regime  in  Canada,  The,  147. 

Old  Sergeant,  The,  184. 

On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners, 


One  Hoss  Shay,  The,  135,  188. 

Oregon  Trail,  The,  147. 

Orrnond,  63,  64. 

"  Orpheus  C.  Kerr,"  193. 

Orphic  Sayings,  105. 

Osgood,  Mrs.  K.  P.,  184. 

Otis,  James,  43-45. 

Our  Master,  158. 

Our  Old  Home,  119. 

Out  of  the  Question,  209. 

Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,  The,  199,  200. 

Outre-Mer,  124. 

Overland  Monthly,  The,  199. 

Over-Soul,  The,  105. 

Paine,  R.  T.,  60. 

Paine,  Tom,  51-53. 

Panorama,  The,  157. 

Paper,  39. 

Parker,  Theodore,  97-100, 106. 

Parkman,  Francis,  123, 145,146, 147. 

Parlor  Car,  The,  210. 

Partisan,  The,  168. 

Passionate  Pilgrim,  A,  205. 

Pathfinder,  The,  83. 

Paulding,  J.  K.,  72,  74,  79,  80. 

Payne,  J.  H.,  84. 

Pearl  of  Orr's  Island,  The,  175. 

Pencilings  by  the  Way,  169. 

Pension  Beaurepas,  The,  206. 

Percival,  J.  G.,  175. 

Percy,  George,  12,  19. 

14  Peter  Parley,"  69. 

"  Petroleum  V.  Nasby,"  193. 

Phenomena  Qusedam  Apocalyptica,  33. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  122.  123,  147,  148,  157, 

174. 

Philosophic  Solitude,  53. 
Philosophy  of  Composition,  163. 
Phoeuixiana,  189. 
Piatt,  J.  J.,  184,  202,  208. 
Pictures  of  Memory,  173. 
Pilot,  The,  84. 

Pink  and  White  Tyranny,  175. 
Pinkney,  E.  C.,  85. 
Pioneer,  The,  138. 
Pioneers,  The,  71, 83. 
Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  Worid, 

147. 
Plain   Language  from    Truthful   James, 

200. 

Planting  of  the  Apple-Tree,  The,  155. 
Plato,  Emerson  on,  108. 
Poe,  E.  A.,  63,  80,  85,  106, 116, 117,  130,  138, 

150,  153,  160-169,  182,  186,  196. 
Poems  of  the  Orient,  171. 
Poems  of  Two  Friends,  208. 
Poems  on  Slavery,  128. 
Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  The,  136. 
Poetic  Principle,  The,  164. 
Poetry:  A  Metrical  Essay,  133. 
Poet's  Hope,  A,  105. 
Political  Green  House,  The,  56. 
Pollard,  E.  A.,  182. 
Pons,  Maxirnus,  173. 
Poor  Richard's  Almanac,  39,  40. 


INDEX. 


281 


Portraits  of  Places,  207. 

Prairie,  The,  83. 

Prentice,  G.  D.,  156,  189. 

Prescott,  W.  H.,  123,  145,  146, 151,  182. 

Present  Crisis,  The,  140. 

Pride  of  the  Village,  The,  77. 

I'rince  Deukalion,  171. 

I'rince  of  Parthia,  The,  63. 

Problem,  The,  110. 

Professor  at    the    Breakfast   Tahle,  The, 

136,  137. 

Progress  to  the  Mines,  A,  17. 
Prologue,  The,  135. 
Prophecy  of  Samuel  Sewell,  The,  33. 
Prophet,  The,  171. 
Psalm  of  Life,  The,  126,  127. 
Purloined  Letter,  The,  163. 
Putnam's  Monthly,  123,  197. 

Quaker  Widow,  The,  171. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  43-45. 

Rag  Man  and  Rag  Woman,  The,  196. 

Randall,  j.  u.,  183. 

Randolph,  John,  46. 

Raven,  The,  163,  165. 

Read,  T.  B.,  173. 

Reaper  and  the  Flowers,  The,  126. 

Rebellion  Record,  The,  183. 

Recollections  of  a  Life-time,  69,  72. 

Red  Rover,  The,  84. 

Register,  The,  210. 

Remarks  on  Associations,  91. 

Remarks  on  National  Literature,  91,  100. 

Reply  to  Hayne,  Webster's,  87. 

Representative  Men,  102, 107,  109. 

Resignation,  128. 

Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  175. 

Rhoecus,  138. 

Rhymes  of  Travel,  171. 

Riding  to  Vote,  184. 

Rights  of  the  British  Colonies,  45. 

Ripley,  George,  95,  99, 100,  106,  151. 

Rip  Van  Winkle,  75. 

Rip  Van  Winkle,  M.D.,  134. 

Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  States, 

182. 

Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power,  182. 
Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  146. 
Rob  of  the  Bowl,  168. 
Roderick  Hudson,  206. 
Roughing  It,  193, 194. 

Salmagundi,  74,  79, 155. 
Sandys,  George,  16,  19. 
San  Francisco,  198. 
Scarlet  Letter,  The,  25,  117, 118, 
School  Days,  156. 
Schoolcraft,  H.  R.,130. 
Science  of  English  Verse,  202. 
Scribner's  Monthly,  197. 
Scripture  Poems,  169. 
Seaside  and  Fireside,  126, 127. 
Seaweed,  127,  129. 
Selling  of  Joseph,  The,  33. 
September  Gale,  The,  133. 


Sevvall,  J,  M.,  60. 
Bewail,  Samuel,  32,  33. 

Shakespeare,  Ode,  89. 

Shaw,  H.  W.,  193. 

Shepherd  of  King  Admetus,  The,  138. 

Sheridan's  Ride,  173. 

Shillaber,  B.  P.,  189. 

Sigourney,  Mrs.  L.  H..  107,  175. 

Silas,  Lapham,  209. 

Simms,  W.  G.,  168. 

Simple  Cobbler  of  Agavvam,  The,  20. 

Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry  God,  35. 

Skeleton  in  Armor,  The,  127. 

Skeleton  in  the  Closet,  The,  196. 

Sketch  Book,  The,  73-75,  77. 

Skipper  Ireson's  Ride,  158. 

Sleeper,  The,  165. 

Sleeping  Car,  The,  63. 

Smith,  Elihu,  55. 

Smith,  John,  11,  12, 15,  19,  24. 

Smith,  Seba,  189. 

Snow-Bouud,  159. 

Society  and  Solitude,  107. 

Song  for  a  Temperance  Dinner,  134. 

Song  of  the  Chattahooc.hie,  202. 

Southern  Literary  Messenger,  The,  160, 162. 

Southern  Passages  and  Pictures,  169. 

Sparkling  and  Bright,  170. 

Specimen  Days,  180. 

Specimens  of  Foreign  Standard  Literaturet 

100. 

Sphinx,  The,  135. 
Sprague,  Charles,  89. 
Spring,  170. 
Spy,  The,  83. 
Squibob  Papers,  180. 
Star  Papers,  176. 

Star-Spangled  Banner,  The,  60,  80. 
Stedman,  E.  C.,  197. 
Stephens,  A.  H.,  182. 
Stith,  William,  17. 
Stoddard,  R.  H.,  170,  197. 
Story  of  Kennett,  The,  172. 
Stowe,  Mrs.  H.  B.,  174,  175. 
Strachey,  William,  11. 
Stuart,  Moses,  98. 
Suburban  Sketches,  208. 
Sumner,  Charles,  122,  123,  124,  142,   U8, 

157,  174. 

Supernaturalism  in  New  England,  1UO. 
Swallow  Barn,  168. 
Swinton,W.,  183. 
Sybaris  and  Other  Homes,  195. 

Tales  of  a  Traveler,  75. 

Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,  159. 

Tales  of  the  Glauber  Spa,  155. 

Tales  of  the  Grotesque  and  Arabesque, 

166. 

Tamerlane,  161. 
Tanglewood  Tales,  119. 
Taylor,  Bayard,  170-173, 
Telling  the  Bees,  159. 
Ten  Times  One  is  Ten,  195. 
Tennessee's  Partner,  200. 
Tent  on  the  Beach,  The,  159. 


282 


INDEX. 


Thanatopsis,  08,  80,  125,  152,  153,  155. 

Their  Wedding  Journey,  208. 

Theology,  Dwight's,  58. 

Thirty  Poems,  154. 

Thoreau,  H.  DM  93,  96,  106,  109,  110,  114, 

119,  122,  123,  125,  151,  179,  182. 
Timrod,  Henry,  184. 
To  a  Waterfowl,  153. 
To  Helen,  162. 

To  M from  Abroad,  170. 

To  One  in  Paradise,  165. 

To  Seneca  Lake,  175. 

Tour  on  the  Prairies,  A,  71. 

Tramp  Abroad,  A,  193. 

Transcendentalist,  The,  101, 102. 

Travels,  D  wight's,  53. 

Treatise  Concerning  Religious  Affections, 

Triumph  of  Infidelity,  58. 

True  Grandeur  of  Nations,  The,  149. 

True  Relation,  Smith's,  15. 

True  Repertory  of  the  Wrack  of  Sir  Thomas 

Gates,  11. 

Trumbull,  John,  54,  55,  73. 
Twice-Told  Tales,  115, 117,118. 
Two  Rivers,  112. 
Tyler,  Royall,  63. 

Ulalume,  165. 
Uncle  Ned,  173. 
Uncle  Remus,  202. 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  174. 
Under  the  Willows,  142. 
Undiscovered  Country,  The,  209. 
Unknown  Dead,  The,  184. 
Unseen  Spirits,  170. 

Valley  of  Unrest,  The,  162. 

Vanity  Fair,  190. 

Vassall  Morton,  145. 

Venetian  Life,  208. 

Views  Afoot,  171. 

Villa  Franca,  142. 

Village  Blacksmith,  The,  127. 

Virginia  Comedians,  The,  196. 

Vision  of  Columbus,  The,  56,  57. 

Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,  The,  140,  J41. 

Visit  from  St.  Nicholas,  A,  170. 

Voices  of  Freedom,  157. 

Voices  of  the  Night,  124,  126. 

Voluntaries,  110. 

Von  Kempelen's  Discovery,  154. 

Walden,  111. 

Wants  of  Man,  The,  85. 

War  Lyrics,  184. 


Ward,  Nathaniel,  20. 

Ware,  Henry,  99. 

Washers  of  the  Shroud,  The,  143. 

Washington,  George,  49,  51.  • 

Washington  as  a  Camp,  185. 

Washington  Square,  185. 

'Way  Down  South,  173. 

Webster,  Daniel,  73,  86-89,  90,  158,  187. 

Webster's  Spelling-Book,  69. 

Week    on    the    Concord   and   Merrimac 

Rivers,  A,  111. 
Western  Windows,  202. 
Westminster  Abbey,  77. 
Westover  MSS.,  The,  16. 
Westward  Ho !  72. 
What  Mr.  Robinson  thinks,  140. 
What  was  It  ?  186. 
Whistle,  The,  39. 
Whitaker,  Alexander,  18. 
White,  R.  G.,  197. 
Whitman,  Walt,  126,  176-180,  183. 
Whittier,  J.  G.,  18,  25,  26,  32,  33,  93,  133, 

138,  155-160,  167, 174,  175,  179,  183,  185, 

197. 

Wieland,  63,  65. 
Wigglesworth,  Michael,  34. 
Wild  Honeysuckle,  The,  61. 
Wilde,  R.  H.,  84. 
Willtam  Wilson,  166. 
Williams,  Roger,  22,  23. 
Willis,  N.  P.,  71,  153,  169, 171,  176. 
Willson  Forceythe,  184. 
Wilson,  Henry,  182.' 
Winter  Evening  Hymn  to  My  Fire,  142. 
Winthrop,  John,  12,  21,  23-28,  31,  33. 
Winthrop,  Theodore,  184. 
Witchcraft,  143. 
Witch's  Daughter,  The,  157 
Wolfert's  Roost,  75. 
Wolfert  Webber,  75. 
Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  105. 
Wonder  Book,  119. 

Wonders  of  the  Invisible  World,  21,  32. 
Woods,  Leonard,  98. 
Woods  in  Winter,  125. 
Woodman,  Spare  that  Tree,  170. 
Wood  worth,  Samuel,  84. 
Woolman's  Journal,  65,  66, 157. 
Wound-Dresser,  The,  178. 
Wrath  Upon  the  Wicked,  35. 
Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,  The,  127, 129. 

Yankee  Doodle,  59. 
Yankee  in  Canada,  111. 
Year's  Life,  A,  138. 
Yemassee,  The,  168. 


THE    END. 


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